Hugs

Almost time for the students to start arriving and the hugging to start. It's something I've never been comfortable with partly cultural mostly personal. It's not a big deal, just uncomfortable. I don't know if it's a uwc thing or an international youth thing but when ever the students arrive back from a trip they always hug each other and if I am in the target area I get hugged too. It's fine when it's someone that you know but often it will be people that I've never spoken to and don't even know the name of. Here is a common scenario; I'm standing with three other staff/students, student x (who is well known to the people I am with) comes along and starts hugging the others but forgets to stop when they get to me, a person who they have hardly seen before. The Hug only happens the first time you meet someone, so if I am in the same situation and someone I have met and hugged already comes along , all the others get a hug and I don't. This also feels awkward as the others give me that look as if to say, "well you're not very popular" so to counteract this I will make some sort of noise translated to mean "yes we met earlier today no need to hug again" followed by a hand on the shoulder or something. When the first years arrive things get worse, suddenly I become best mate to all second years. Second year walks past with three first years "Hi Chris how were the holidays, do some good climbs?" "Yeah hi, who are you?"
I quite like these few days with loads of friends.
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