Hey there!

Since I didn't find anything concerning this particular topic on the site, I figured I'd just write you my own little piece of advice.

It's for those of you who are a bit (or a bit more) scared of touching people. I used to get all tense and anxious when I was expected to hug someone, even worse if it was a guy. I was hypersensitive and assigned way too much meaning to casual touch, that other's never even noticed. Even with girls but even more so with guys, I was at the same time craving the feeling of their physical closeness and was nervous beyond measure to actually let or make it happen.

Now here's my advice. It won't work fast and on its own it won't do the trick, I guess, but it's a great way of working on your problem.

Take up martial arts. First of all, it makes you use your body. Learning to control your own body can make you feel more confident about yourself already. But more importantly, martial arts will make you touch people. It gives you an opportunity to practice enduring other peoples' nearness and their touch (even of the opposite sex) without anyone having to take any notice - because touching each other is a necessary and normal routine thing. I always felt martial arts provided a rather unthreatening environment. You see, nobody is going to expect anything of you. In the "real world" you might fear that someone may interpret you touching them in a way you didn't intend. The other way around, you might not be able to relax when someone touches you, because you are afraid of his or her intentions. Or then again, maybe you are afraid that they will not like being touched by you. With martial arts, you don't have to worry about it - nobody is going to expect anything from you other than being a good training partner, and surely nobody will feel offended by you touching them.

Depending on your degree of anxiety about physical contact, you may want to chose a different sport: With more kicking- and striking- oriented Karate or Taek Won Do, you seldomly have to get very close to your opponent. On the other end of the scale, Judo, depending heavily on throwing and holding people, requires a lot of body contact. Aikido for example provides some sort of middle way, apart from joint locks it too uses many throwing techniques, but you can usually stay at a little more distance from your partner. Chose whatever suits your needs.

Couple more things to say about this:
-It may not be easy to follow through with training. When I felt I wasn't up to the psychological stress, I allowed myself to skip a training - although not more than once a week.
-Of course, touching someone outside of the training context is still quite a different story. But I truly believe it's all about breaking up the long journey into small, manageable steps. Practicing in an emotionally neutral environment like this could be one.
-For me, one of the greatest insights was the realization that it is possible to touch people in a completely non-sexual way. I even learned to enjoy it. It might not help you along when making advances towards your honey-to-be, but there will be many situations when it's wonderful to be able to shake hands or tap someone on the shoulder without the usual anxiety.
-And finally, don't forget that doing sports often makes people feel more confident, healthy and handsome/pretty. Don't underestimate it, sports can even alleviate depression.

Hope that is of some help to someone.

Marie