Apparently Huggy is a big hit with a few of my readers and due to a couple emailed requests for more details on the woman behind the cuddly nickname I have decided to dedicate an entire blog post to her. An entire blog dedicated to a woman other than my mother. Well there’s a first time for everything.

Me and Huggy met under some truly strange circumstances I think. We met in the emergency room of the hospital at 3 AM. My goal keeper teammate for one of my indoor soccer teams had dislocated his shoulder and I was with him in one of the patient rooms waiting for a doctor when in walked Huggy.

Huggy was the nurse on shift that night and she was amazingly pleasant for someone working at 3 in the morning, and she even looked cute in her hospital green scrubs (quite a mean feat that seeing as how scrubs just look like pajamas to me). She was very attentive, offered us both a cup of coffee or water, and asked what we were doing playing soccer so late at night. I explained it was an after work league and we had the late game.

A sucker for flawless skin I thought Huggy was attractive and more my “type” physically than some of the women I had dated in the past. She was petite, had smooth, dark skin, one eye that seemed somewhat smaller than the other (its actually kind of cool in a weird way), and sharp dark features. But what really got my attention was her smile. The kind of smile that contrasted pearl white, pretty teeth with mahogany-hued skin. A smile that showed she had a mischievous side to her, revealed when she silently mouthed to me to hold my teammates hand while the doctor popped his shoulder back in socket. Being the manly, man that I am, I was not about to hold a grown mans hand in the hospital like that and I pretended to not understand what she was getting at. I shook my head, gave her a confused look, and mouthed back a silent “Whaaat?!” She smiled that zany, mischievous smile I have come to like so much that said “I know exactly why you won’t hold the poor guys hand… punk!” It wasn’t hard after that to finagle a phone number out of her while she filled out some release forms.

We didn’t meet again until two or three weeks after that. She was moving and had planned a trip to the Bahamas and California with some friends and was gone for the next two weeks. During that time, thinking she wasn’t interested enough, I kind of forgot about her until she sent a message to my MySpace page. She was apparently interested enough. We spoke on the phone for a little while. She talked. I listened. Then we met for dinner one day, a movie the next.

Initially our relationship never moved past the platonic. She had recently gotten out of a relationship and just wanted friends for the moment, which was fine with me. But there was a comfort level between us that I had not felt in a long time. Huggy would burp or fart or spit around me shamelessly and none of it disgusted me in the least bit as there was a femininity in the way she did even the most masculine things. Then she would just smile and look at me. The more I saw her the more comfortable I felt hanging out with her and the more she would surprise me each and every time with some unexpected action. Once she hugged me for what must have been close to an hour after dropping her home from one of our dates (which she always insisted were not dates). She just hugged me without saying a word. Another time she had me help her take her weave tracks out.

More recently Huggy has expressed that she does like me. And I like her too… but I am still a little wary. Not wary of Huggy, mind you, but more wary of myself. I have developed a tendency to “lose interest” in women not long after learning that they want more than a friendship. The residual effects of having been hurt in the past? Maybe. But for now I am satisfied with the relationship I do have with Huggy. No pressure. No commitment. Plenty of hugs.