Some families can really stretch out a farewell-hugging session. Some people think a three-hour flight requires the same tearful sendoff family members will be giving to astronauts when they leave to colonize Mars. Well, an airport in New Zealand has had enough of them. Dunedin International Airport is implementing a strict three-minute limit on goodbye hugs in drop-off zones.
The airport’s CEO, Daniel De Bono, told the Associated Press that the new rule is designed to keep the drop-off area flowing and that “quick farewells” should be the norm in such spaces instead of these long luxuriating love sessions people are doing in a driving space that is essentially an express drop-off lane.
Signs outside the terminal reading “Max hug time three minutes” will notify people of their strict hug restrictions. “Fonder farewells,” it continues, should be done in the airport parking lot instead. Save all the ass-grabbing, smooching, and tears for the areas where people aren’t in a major rush to make a flight.
De Bono has even taken a scientific approach in his reasoning, arguing that even a 20-second hug should be more than enough time to release feel-good hormones like Oxytocin and serotonin. Anything more than that, he added, and things start to get “really awkward.”
For as much as I agree with his overall mission, he does sound like he is seconds away from spraying down huggers with a garden hose like they’re dogs humping on his lawn.
NBC News, doing its journalistic duty to get all sides of the story, spoke to the head of the psychological science department at the UK’s University of Bristol. He largely agrees with De Bono’s idea that you don’t need that much time to release the pleasant happy chemicals in your brain reaped from a hug, but also argues that the “context and quality of the hug are crucial” and that time limits could undermine the natural release of such chemicals.
Look, to pad out the word length of some of these articles some of these news organizations went a little overboard covering the story. So let’s just put it this way: no matter where you are in the world, either New Zealand or anywhere else on the planet, if you are in a drop-off zone at an airport, say your goodbyes as quickly and efficiently as possible. Then get back in your car, and get the hell out of there, or else airports are going to have to start putting in MMA-style octagons so people can settle the disputes resulting from their interminable hugging.
The post New Zealand Airport Limits Hugs to 3 Minutes to Prevent ‘Awkward’ Goodbyes appeared first on VICE.
The post New Zealand Airport Limits Hugs to 3 Minutes to Prevent ‘Awkward’ Goodbyes appeared first on VICE.
