Next up for synthetic relationships: cuddle parties. So yeah, sometimes it's hard to find someone to cuddle with, but is this "latest craze" any less bizarre than the above-linked imaginary girlfriends?
It's not about sex and all about the touchy-feely experience of snuggling up to perfect strangers wearing pajamas.Everyone needs to be cuddled... so let's cut out all the preliminaries and get right to it! I'm sure you'll feel amazingly fulfilled the morning after.The grab fests are called cuddle parties, and since they started in New York in February, hundreds of people have paid $30 each to touch and embrace others in intimate gatherings.
Everyone needs to be cuddled, especially in lonely New York, say creators Reid Mihalko and Marcia Baczynski who say it's a good way to meet new and interesting people.
Curiosity is a big driver for people who attend cuddle parties, and it is a better way to meet people than going to a bar, getting drunk and spending the night with someone just because of the need for some affection, she said.If that's the only alternative you can think of, that's pretty sad.
This kind of story is actually a little comforting to me, because it indicates that I'm not the only person having trouble establishing a meaningful relationship. On the other hand, it's disheartening to see just how desperate and lonely it's possible to get. I think many of the problems my generation has with intimacy come from the divorces of our parents -- but that's for another post.
Some of my problems with intimacy come from the fact that my mother was unable to sustain a relationship with a man for more than six months. But *more* of my problems come from the fact that the men she was attracted to were almost uniformly abusive, violent, angry jerks who were incapable of forming an emotional bond with anyone.
I'd much rather not have had any of them in my life; my mother's divorces were all features. The problem was that she dated and married these men at all.
The worst part about this is that these people seem to realize that getting drunk at a bar and then mutually masturbating with a stranger is NOT going to quell their loneliness or make them in any way happy. They seem to be seeking some kind of mean[ing] between extremes, but are woefully unable to find it. Their efforts end up leading them into a pseudo-orgy. Its a great commentary on where the 60s led us...from orgies to cuddle parties (which probably amount to the same thing as orgies, but its the new thought that counts). That is a sad commentary on the brokeness in so many in our generation that stems from the sexual "liberation" of the recent past.
On the other hand, I always thought a good idea for a bar is to encourage everyone to wear comfortable, non-racy pajamas...it would set a damn comfortable tone.