As the new boyfriend and I walked hand in hand around the shady paths of a local park a middle-aged man who was walking with his family stopped us.
“Can I ask you a survey question,” he said as the baby strapped to his stomach in a koala pouch contraption smiled a toothless grin.
My boyfriend and I looked at each other, “Sure,” we said.
“Why do you hold hands?” said the man, he smiled at his wife, “My wife says we don’t need to hold hands to prove we’re in love.”
“We have kids for that,” his wife piped up, wrangling a 2 year old curly-haired boy around the path. In theory, when you have two kids under three I suppose your hands are always full. This couple didn’t have a spare hand to hold.
My boyfriend and I just looked at each other.
We didn’t really have an answer.
“I don’t really know,” I said.
We made a few jokes about finding out the results of the survey and lack of hands for the holding and went on our respective ways through the park. But that question struck me.
Why do we hold hands?
The obvious reason is we like to have a physical connection to another person.
Handholding is a symbol of connection between two people, either out of love or protection, sometimes both. We hold hands with our closest friends to emphasize our emotions, grabbing their palms to say, “That’s wonderful!” or “It’ll be ok”. We hold hands with our children when we cross the street and in crowded areas to keep them safe from separation. We hold hands with strangers in church to symbolize our union as a family under one higher power. We hold hands with our lovers to say, “I’m here. You’re here. We are.”
It’s all about connection.
Which is why it was such a big deal when you held hands during Farmer in the Dell in grade school. And why I tried to make sure I sat next to someone who didn’t smell when we had to go mass at Catholic school. Some connections you’d rather not have, even for a minute.
According to a NY Times article in 2006, handholding is now the more significant sign of expression of love and romance. College students at the time stated that it was “more intimate” to hold hands than kiss. They also stated that holding hands in public is one of the utmost signs of commitment.
To tell you the truth, I hadn’t thought about it that way. I can’t even remember the first time the new boy and I held hands, and we haven’t even been a “thing” for every long, never mind a couple. We must have reached for each other at the same time, naturally.
It makes me wonder* how something so intimate and full of meaning can feel so natural, so beautifully mundane.
A natural as a walk in the park.
*wonder with elation and awe at all of this, not with doubt. Not at all with doubt.
at the right time, in the right place, i can be a hand holder. im not a hand holder across the table though.
aw new boyfriend! love it and I love holding hands
Found your blog via Oh! How Lovely.
I really enjoyed this entry/essay! I’m also a big fan of hand holding. It IS all about the connection.
my boyfriend doesn’t like holding hands at all. he said that he doesn’t like a PDA. i don’t think it’s a PDA anyway..
Love is holding hands in the street.
Marriage is holding arguments in the street.