I’m starving. And I don’t think I’m the only one.

A few years ago, I remember reading about this crazy new trend: cuddle parties. Perfect strangers would get together for a completely platonic love fest. Outsiders found this odd and couldn’t quite understand why non-aquaintances would pay money to snuggle with each other. But it made perfect sense to me. People are starving—desperately lacking in our daily dose of physical touch.

There’ve been countless studies about babies, orphans mostly, whose development is stunted due to lack of physical touch. People actually volunteer time to simply hold these children for 5 or 10 minutes each day. They do the same thing at Humane Societies and such. It seems to be an innate need in many species.

Generation X and its younger counterparts have grown up in a world where virtual encounters and being plugged in 24/7 is the norm. But all of that can backfire, as our society increasingly uses text, IM, email and mobile phones. We now find ourselves yearning for real connections, weary of the virtual variety.

Aside from stress and therapeutic benefits, you may find clients coming to you for a hand out—literally. Whether it’s a haircut or a 60-minute massage, it may be the only physical touch that some people receive in a day, a week, a month or even longer.

Ever wonder what happened to traditional dating? My generation did away with it in its desperate quest for connections. We didn’t want to date, we just needed to feel the warmth of another body. We wanted the warm-fuzzies that come along with the two-armed embrace of our best friend’s bear hugs or that comfortably blissful feeling we used to get when mom or dad would tuck us into bed and kiss us on the forehead.

We just want to be touched.

Though cuddle parties never made it into the mainstream, day spas are certainly filling the void—something that shouldn’t be underestimated. While perhaps not the most noticeable of ways that you can give back to society, you can feel good knowing that you are, quite literally, touching someone’s life in one of the most positive ways.

Kimiko Martinez
Associate Editor, DAYSPA