Have you noticed someone around you who just loves to share skin-to-skin contact with you at all times, especially when talking?
It could even be that you were in a relationship with the person and he or she loves hands-on intimacy mostly expressed with physical touch.
So, what do you call someone who loves to touch others gently several times? Well, there are many word choices, and the one you use depends on the intention and how it is done.
Generally speaking, someone who likes to touch is called a tactile person. However, there are other words you can use that will specifically express your denotation – whether positive or negative. But to be neutral and less specific, tactile is the word.
The rest of this article will focus on 5 different words you can call someone who loves to touch, their meanings, and how they can be applied in sentences under different contexts.
5 Names to Call Someone Who Likes To Touch
One thing we should note when describing people who naturally love to touch is that this expression every human has in them, given that we are social creatures.
The only difference is that some people are much more into physical contact than others, especially during interaction.
If you know someone who loves to touch, here are five different names you can use to refer to the person:
Tactile
Tactile is the regular word commonly used to refer to someone who loves to express physical touch in various forms, especially when communicating.
When you use the word tactile to call someone, you are insinuating that the person cannot complete a single interaction process without touching other people a lot when talking to them.
There are a lot of emotional and physical health benefits that come from touch, however, not everyone will accommodate being touched by a tactile person especially when the level of intimacy is considered.
Nevertheless, tactile is the term you use to call someone who loves to touch without sending a negative or positive denotation.
It is ideal to use in a situation where you want to sound less specific, emphasizing the central message than how the person touches or the kind of relationship involved to compensate for the expression.
Touchy
Another word you can use to describe someone who loves to touch is to call the person a touchy person. The problem in using this word is that it shares meaning with a few other insinuations.
For example, when you say someone is touchy, it could also mean that the person easily gets upset, offended, or irritated.
This does not mean that when you say someone is touchy because they love being touched is wrong.
Only that you need to be sure the situation is one where you won’t be easily misinterpreted when you use this ambiguous word.
Being a touchy person can mean more than one thing, and being a lover of touching is one of them.
It is best used when you don’t want to derail from the central keyword and idea (touch) but you have to make sure it directly applies or backs up the word with a supporting sentence to make it more explicit to the person you are communicating with.
Handsy
You could call someone who loves to touch a Handsy person. This is not just because the touching body language is done by hand.
Being Handsy means having a high tendency to touch other people inappropriately. So, it is best used to denote a negative impression of the person.
If the person in question regularly invades the personal space of other people and engages in unwanted touching or groping, you can use this word.
In other words, it is not ideal to use the word Handsy to call someone who loves to touch if the person does it spontaneously or without any negative intention.
If you are offended by the person’s character of touching others inappropriately, then you can use the word Handsy to describe the person. It is an adjective to describe people who seem to can’t to keep their hands to themselves.
Suppose the person is fond of constantly touching, poking, feeling, and rubbing others (especially males and females) then you can describe such a person as being Handsy.
Haptic
Haptic means someone whose perception of interaction is predominantly about touching than sight.
It is medical jargon for the word tactile that was discussed earlier. In other words, it is a more sophisticated way of saying someone loves to touch.
It is not best to use this word among people whose literacy level is limited because it does not seem like an easy-to-resonate word compared to other options on this list.
When you say someone is Haptic, it means the person prefers more touching than just hearing or seeing during the interaction.
If the person in question loves touching in the context of a romantic impression, then using the word Haptic is not ideal.
This word best fits when the person’s way of touching is platonic such as more handshakes, pats on the bag, casual hugs, and so on.
Physically affectionate
A physically affectionate person is someone who loves every gesture that falls under the physical expression of love, intimacy, or relationship with people, part of which includes physical touch.
This is a very liberal and general word, so you only use it when you want to sound less specific. However, it narrows the insinuation to the idea that the person enjoys expressing love through physical touch.
In other words, you won’t want to use this term to refer to someone who loves touch when the person does it inappropriately.
Physically affectionate people express their care and love through physical gestures and it is not limited to touching alone because lovemaking is part of it.
So, when you use this term, you are opening the bracket that there is no limit to the type of touching the person can engage in depending on the relationship or level of intimacy.
What Does It Mean When You Like Being Touched?
The obvious meaning behind someone liking to be touched is that the person prefers physical expressions of love to verbal compliments, gifts, and other types of expressions of affection.
In a platonic context, liking to be touched may mean that the person believes that he or she sounds compelling or empathetic when expressed in physical touch.
Physical touch is not limited to holding hands or patting someone on the back, it could also be expressed through a hug, a shoulder squeeze, or giving (or receiving as the case may apply) spontaneous or random kisses on the lips, forehead, or elsewhere.
Seven possible different meanings can be read to your liking to be touched. These include but are not limited to:
- If you love to be touched, it may mean you find it sweet and affectionate when your partner, friend, or the person you are interacting with touches you. It means the person is big on physical touch as a love language.
- If someone likes to be touched especially through little physical gestures like holding hands and resting your head on each other’s shoulders, it may mean the person feels special in that way, and not necessarily through gifts and surprises.
- When someone loves to be touched, it could also be an indication that the person loves giving and receiving public displays of affection. People like that will not be comfortable keeping a romantic relationship in secret or away from the knowledge of the public.
- Another meaning that could be read to someone liking to be touched is that the person will find it weird to sit on a couch next to someone in close relation without touching in some way. It could mean that the person feels loved mostly through receiving touch and appears to be super romantic.
- People who love to receive touch may only see it as a way that others can express that they care about them, especially when they appreciate a long, warm hug above all other types of physical touch.
Conclusion
Any of the words discussed will apply in most situations and contexts when you want to describe someone who loves to touch.
Before you use them, be certain that they fit into the line of thoughts and how you intend to pass the description.
In some regions, some words are offensive while the same words, in other places, are not. Again, some are more informal than others.
It is very easy to describe the expression of physical touch given that it is a popular example of love language. But not all tactile people touch often due to intimate reasons.
If you know anyone who loves to express and receive affection through touch, physical closeness, and other forms of physical connection, then using any of the touch-describing words to call them would suffice.
The good thing about these words is that they also apply to someone who loves other forms of physical touch like kissing, hugging, holding hands, and lovemaking.
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