Yep. My Central American family members have a whole different concept of personal space. As in, my personal bubble is like 3 feet, I’m not a toucher, and they find that weird and off-putting.
I’m the child of the black sheep of the family and a white woman, so their expectations of me are not the same as for all of my cousins. They expect me to be weird and have low morals, which is fine. (No one said this to my face, I heard it from around a corner, and it was really liberating, actually.) They do still expect me to kiss and hug everyone they introduce me to, though. There are more than 50 first cousins in my generation, so the family is freaking huge.
At least the kisses are more like two people touching cheeks and making a kissy sound, maybe a sliver of lip corner, not a full on smacker.
I can’t imagine being a celebrity and anyone thinking they can just hug me. Yeesh. I don’t care for Seinfeld, he’s just not my bag of funny, but I understand the desire to avoid hugs from strangers.
