Hugs from behind – confused puppy or sleaze or something else?

I’m going to assume you have little dating experience, since you’ve never had a relationship. Tallspicy is 100% correct in everything she said. It sounds like this guy was nice and respectful– he gave things a chance by going on several dates, decided he didn’t see a future, and let you know kindly and respectfully.

That’s what dating is, it’s going out with someone for a while to see if you want to pursue anything long term. More often than not, it does not work out. A guy does not owe you anything until he is your boyfriend and you have an agreed upon commitment (and even then, people have the right to end a relationship if it’s not working for them).

If it helps, it can take 3-4 months of consistent dating before a guy is ready to lock you down. So you could theoretically date a guy for months and he could still decide it’s not working for him.

You have to understand, it could have been so much worse. He could have just faded out without explaining. He could have totally ghosted you. He could have slept with you and then ghosted you. That happens plenty, you’ll see if you read this board. What this guy did was quite respectful and kind by modern dating standards.

If you’re going to be on the apps, you’ll have to toughen up. A guy will hug you, kiss you, and do more than that if you let him– but it doesn’t mean he wants a commitment with you. It doesn’t even mean he wants more dates with you. It just means the hugs, kisses, etc felt good in that moment.

Sometimes people on dating apps are looking for fun more than looking for long term relationships, too. That doesn’t make them sleazy as long as they are respectful and don’t say they want something they actually don’t just to get you more comfortable being intimate with them. He said he liked you but wasn’t sure where things were going (perfectly normal for a few dates), and then called it off before meeting lots of your friends at your party. That’s not sleazy, you just were getting to know each other and didn’t want the same things.

In regards to the hugs, they overall are just hugs. Some people are more naturally physically and publicly affectionate than others. Something like that may also be to test the waters about how open you might be to hooking up, and if you’re not, then you’re actually filtering the guy out for wanting something different than you do, just as you should be!

Behind hugs from someone you really don’t know are kind of creepy…

I think the hugs from behind were his way of escalating physical intimacy more quickly than the rate at which you were going.

When you were direct with your question on date 4, it became obvious to him that physical escalation with you came with a price. You expected commitment and you weren’t afraid to voice it or ask about it. And your joke about returning to Bumble made it abundantly clear to him that you weren’t going to settle for less.

He was not ready for boyfriend/girlfriend commitment. He knew this already by date 4 and hence his reply to you.

On date 5 he continued the physical escalation but you threw a spanner in the works when you invited him to a party. How could he say no when he was in the middle of making the moves on you? He would have seemed like a right jerk, there was no way he could have justified it because he was acting like your boyfriend and he knew it. And maybe he even genuinely in that moment wanted to come.

In his mind he may possibly have thought after date 4 that he would continue seeing you and maybe it would lead to him falling for you. Or maybe he already knew it never would. There’s no way of telling without him clarifying for us, and that could be a hard thing to confess – if indeed he was even that aware in the first place.

Most guys are more in the moment without thinking that hard about the future. (Unless you’re with an ambitious go getter type who is very very intentional in what he does, or a guy on a mission to find a wife.)

I’m guessing the longer hug at the very end of date 5 was a natural progression of the physical escalation and the longer eye contact whilst still in embrace, a deepening of the emotional intensity of the situation that is now developing between you too. You both know where this is going now and nobody can deny it now.

I’m not saying he planned this last part necessarily, it was likely just a natural flow of what was happening between you both, at least physically. (Unless he really was super clear by this time that he was going to end it already, and it was his either goodbye forever or last attempt to see if he could bed you. But I think it would be overly harsh to assume that.)

Now however he’s in a conundrum. He’s moved fast towards physical intimacy – although for guys it’s not really fast at all. Guys are just wired differently to us, literally speaking. Their neurological and biological make up allows them to engage in sex without attachment, and it’s simultaneously a gift and curse for them.

You on the other hand, have been content to follow his lead, but you’ve quickly escalated implied commitment by inviting him to a party where he’ll effectively be introduced as your new guy. He knows you’re not into casually dating, so he knows it’s going to be a super big deal when your friends and inner social circle meet him.

Now presumably he’s freaking out about this a little bit – or at least having to give this dating situation between you way more advance thought than he wants to.

Does he really see you as long term girlfriend material already? He better do, because it’s clear to him that this is what he’s getting himself into deeper and deeper now.

There’s no chance for him after the party to either escalate physical intimacy further or, if we’re being more generous to him, to get to know you further – without him being tagged as your boyfriend.

He knows he won’t be able to get away with anything less than total clarity to you, because your confidence and self-worth is high and you’re direct with your expectations.

It’s too much for him and eventually he bails at the last minute because he can’t see a way out of it that will end happily for either of you.

It’s appears cruel because now you’ve woken up on the morning of your party to a text that means, instead of being excited about introducing your new beau to your friends, you have to deal with the double devastation of being both dumped and then the same day having to public announce it at a party you’re hosting.

But in his mind he probably thought he was being kind because to lead you on further without certainty would ultimately be more painful for both of you.

Is he a jerk/sleaze or a hero? Based on this alone, I’d say neither, he’s just a guy. They’re wired differently to us, and unless they’ve been trained by excellent role models on how to treat a lady in the way we would love to be treated, or they’re highly emotionally mature and spiritually aware, they’re just going to struggle and mess up most of the time.

You’ve received great clear advice and guidance above. The more you understand it’s just the nature of guys to want to sample the goods without obligation to buy, the more objectively you can see what feels overwhelmingly personal most of the time.

Physical intimacy invokes a different meaning for men and women. It’s evolutionary and it’s nobody’s fault. It’s meant to be this way and the survival of our human species is predicated on it.

Men can and will get physical without emotional attachment. Whereas escalating physical intimacy always leads to escalating levels of emotional bonding and attachment for women. All women, even the ones who think they can handle casual physical intimacy, always end up confused, hurt, heartbroken in the end, in direct proportion to how far the physical intimacy progressed. (The exception being those women that have had to deal with sexual abuse/trauma earlier in their lives that interrupted their natural mental/emotional circuitry).

I’d leave it at that, except you asked specifically about the hugs from behind. So let me address this separately.

The hugs from behind were lovers hugs. This kind of hug necessarily feels different from other hugs you’ve received in the past because it’s a full body hug, with contact of your lower pelvic regions and given with the intent to demonstrate and experience both loving, and physical intimacy.

He knew what he was doing when he gave those hugs. And they were likely planned in his head beforehand, because you describe the situations using words like “he sneaked / found a way”. If they were a natural flow of the intimacy that was growing between you at a respectful pace for you as a unique individual, your radar wouldn’t be questioning the hugs. And your gut instinct wouldn’t have led you to make your post on this forum questioning the hugs.

At the risk of sounding harsh and judgemental I can tell you that I wouldn’t trust this guy. There’s something underhand in how he delivered those hugs in the way you describe.

I’d only expect to receive such an intimate loving act from my boyfriend/lover/husband, someone who I’d already given the green light to approach my inner personal space and body in that way. Someone whom I trusted immensely already.

You’re reaction to the hugs tells me that you’d neither given him the green light nor had he earned the right by building trust sufficiently already with you.

And the more cynical (but wiser instinct) in me says, his propensity to approach from behind and take what wasn’t being freely given or earned, may be symbolic of his character and what you can expect from him in other situations in life.

Some amount of physical intimacy is bound to happen if you go on more than a couple dates with a guy. It’s a natural part of seeing whether you’re compatible & have chemistry. Like Tammy mentioned, it’s a natural part of the process, and women can also enjoy it (I was the one who kissed my bf on date 3 because I was tired of waiting to be kissed– and it was wonderful). It’s a matter of setting boundaries and not doing anything you aren’t comfortable with.

A hug is pretty innocent, honestly. It’s not even as intimate as a kiss. If this guy had groped her or something it would be different, but he literally just hugged her. I think by date 4 or 5 it’s healthy and normal to expect SOME physical intimacy with someone you’re dating– kissing, hugging, making out, whatever. It will be very hard to date if you expect commitment before even hugging or kissing a guy. And frankly that’s not a reasonable expectation.

Hi all
Hey thanks everyone so much I am blown away. This is all super helpful/insightful. Confirmed I am inexperienced at dating and I am going to do things differently going forward. e.g. adjust my expectations, be more aware of physical interactions (i.e. I’m way more bound to get emotionally attached than guys), clarify so I don’t misread/miscommunicate.

I normally wouldn’t allow a hug from behind so early on, but I did, because I think it just felt so safe/calming when he did them. My heart did melt, I’m pretty weak. I think going forward, I’d escape it tactfully / only allow that sort of hug in a later stage of dating. Or accept and enjoy it for the there-and-then sensation it was if I can. Might also clarify with something like “Hey I really like this, are you normally this affectionate on dates?”
If it helps clarify:

– we are both “Christian”, if that explains too much haha. He is Catholic, I was raised evangelical (with friends from that era who easily think guys are sleazes…) but probably a more liberal non denominational Christian now. I had never thought of norms on physical affection for casual dates much because most Christian guys in the evangelical circles would have never gone further than a normal friends hug until ‘official’. I had headlined to him most guys I’d dated were super intentional, almost job interviewy, and what he was doing was way more enjoyable but also just really different. So I think there was definitely a clash of dating norms here.

– the hugs from behind were very gentle. No lower body touching. But definitely his chest touching my back and his arms very lightly over my waist. I got way more of a romantic then a sexual vibe.

– he elbowed me playfully on the second date and I told him, look I didn’t mind him doing it at all but he had to be careful about surprise touches with me, because after 5 years of doing martial arts I had a knee jerk response to performing self defence moves. I actually had to fight this response with the coming from behind hugs. It was the 5th date I relaxed more. I think maybe that’s why it probably sticks with me. I had let my guard down for him.

– the party was a themed party I was making up on the fly separate to him in my life, and it seemed weird in a way, not to bring it up on the 5th date, since we shared so much about our lives. I did message him saying I hope you know its not a meet the Bumble guy party, just a chaotic mix of randoms. He said haha don’t worry I know I know. Maybe I miscommunicated. I definitely would have been OK just not introducing him to my friends or just taking it date by date if that’s what he wanted. I had seen the meet the friends as being way more casual I guess.

Maybe it would have helped going slower! Or maybe just a trigger for him to realise what he had been holding off… He definitely tends to dither sometimes. I simplified how he broke things off, he came off very scattered but got there in the end. 😅