Recently my volunteering friends and I discussed PDA (public displays of affection). My two friends talked about their husbands’ discomfort with PDA. Well, I could relate to that: it tends to make a lot of people uncomfortable. But then I learned that what they meant by PDA was hand-holding, hugs, a quick kiss.
My one friend said it took her husband years before he would hold her hand in public. The other said that when she and her husband meet up somewhere, when her husband arrives all the other women in the room get a hug, or sometimes even a kiss on the cheek (these friends are British, so sometimes their practices are more European), but all she gets is a “hullo, dear.” This friend’s husband isn’t being creepy: that’s just how men greet female friends in certain parts of the world.
I told them that standards for PDA must have changed over the years, because my generation defines it more or less as making out in public. PDA is perhaps better defined as LPDA, or “long public displays of affection.” I suppose the PDA could be short, but rather passionate, and still qualify. Basically, if it’s the sort of thing you wouldn’t want to see someone else doing, it’s not something you should do in public, and that’s PDA.
The funny thing is, my friends agreed. They said that’s their definition of PDA as well. At least it was, until they got married. Then their husbands were so prudish in public, so unwilling to show any scrap of affection to their wives in front of others, that their definitions changed. My first friend said that she and her husband met at work, so perhaps her husband internalized the idea that it would be inappropriate to show displays of affection in public, as it might have been at their work, and it took him years to get over that. The other friend is, as I said, British, and she says that again cultural differences have something to do with it (though how strange is it to me that it’s O.K. to greet friends with a hug, but not one’s wife?).
I said in some ways I was surprised Jon isn’t more like my friends’ husbands. He’s more of a reserved kind of person. Perhaps our generational differences come into play, or perhaps it’s because we started dating in college. There wasn’t really anywhere to go in college to be alone, so we sort of had to be O.K. with holding each other’s hands or showing affection if there were other people around.
Not that I would describe anything Jon and I do as PDA. We do hold hands when walking sometimes, but usually only during part of a longer hike. If we meet up for lunch, I usually get a goodbye hug or kiss. But we’re not attached at the hip, and we don’t have to be too affectionate in public.
Marriage is something that’s true both at home and out in the world. Once we’ve declared ourselves joined to another person, we shouldn’t feel ashamed of showing that in front of others sometimes. But there’s a held hand, a hug, a quick kiss, and then there’s crossing the line and just making others uncomfortable. I’ve never struggled with the difference, but it’s interesting to hear from those who have.
What do you consider to be PDA? Do you and your spouse have different definitions of it?
*(The above image by imagerymajestic is from freedigitalphotos.net).