Just hug it out baby

Memorial Day 2007 and I have chalked up yet another quintessential Seinfeld moment. We're enjoying a nice cookout at our friends Monica and Hunter's place. Helen and I are sitting on their sofa chatting with another couple when the first bailers start making the rounds to say their goodbyes.

We stand as this nice couple we met earlier in the evening approach (I'll call them Tony and Laurie to protect the innocent).

"Nice to meet you."

"Good luck with house hunting."

"Maybe we'll see you again."

Just as we enter the handshake zone, Laurie makes an almost imperceptible lean towards me. A gesture that was not accompanied by extended arms, and somewhat tentative and hesitant. Uncertain. That's probably the best description.

In the milliseconds that pass between Laurie's lean and my reaction, my brain has deciphered her movement and processed the various reasons, assumptions and responses available to me. I remember my mind making lightning quick calculations and concluding that Laurie must be one of those touchy-feely people who hug on the first meeting. Maybe it was because we'd had a pretty engaging conversation earlier in the evening, or that I'd observed how affectionate she was with her son. In any case, I found myself leaning forward in a hug.

As I reached my arms toward her, Laurie's posture stiffened and her forward momentum jolted to a halt for just a nanosecond, before her torso continued on its collision path with mine. All of a sudden I found myself in a time freeze, where everything in the physical world crawled like a slow motion video. That fraction of a second between my realization that something was terribly wrong and the consummation of our awkward hug seemed like an eternity. Only the synaptic connection between thought, recognition and embarrassment moved at hypersonic speed.

"Oh crap...what did I do? She wasn't looking for a hug you idiot!"

As we engaged in the ridiculously embarrassing hug - complete with exaggerated forward lean and staccato back patting - I realized that Laurie had simply been reaching for her purse, which was sitting on the end table behind me.

If my friends were not as nice, I probably would have been the butt of laughter and ribbing. And if I had more Jim Carey in me, I probably would have gone all the way and just given her a crazy-faced two minute hug. Alas, neither happened and it will simply be filed under another cruel moment of cosmic comedy.