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Sitting in a train on the Eurotunnel, we had a good view of the car in front: a couple with two children. After some minutes, my aunt remarked, “They aren't her children.” I readily agreed with her assessment. What tipped her off was that the couple was very lovey-dovey, petting and gazing into each other's eyes in such a way that indicated their relationship was much younger than the eight years or so of the kids. It was the man of the couple who was the first to answer whenever one of the children wanted attention, so it seemed (to my aunt) reasonable to suppose they were his from a previous relationship. Further, something in his manner led her to think that they didn't live with him normally, and the circumstances of being on a trip abroad, as well as the fact that almost always it is the mother who gets landed with the kids in case of divorce, made this a plausible hypothesis.

In fact, I had already reached a similar judgement, for different reasons. Parents usually behave, by definition even, in a familiar manner with their children. Changing of nappies, raps on the knuckles, tickles, hugs: these and many more unnamed acts of physical contact are a syndrome of (that is, a set of observable behaviours associated with) parental intimacy. (I use “intimacy” in the wider sense here and throughout, not as a euphemism for sex.) In this family, the father clearly showed such intimacy: he was comfortable lifting the kids up for a better view of something, or clipping them gently round the ear, or simply stepping over them when they got under his feet (as children are wont to do). But his lady-friend was not. She was unfailingly polite with the children, and smiled at them, and spoke softly, but she was very hands-off. She dealt with them exactly as one deals with other people's children: she pussy-footed around them.

Children are the same in school: they play rough-and-tumble games, and push each other around, and shake people's shoulders to get their attention. But as they grow up, they develop a sense of personal space. They learn not to touch, to keep their hands to themselves. As they do, their parents' physical shows of affection begin to trouble and embarrass them. Public hugging is no longer acceptable. Kisses are way out of line. It's only as they grow yet older and learn the use of contact in courting and romantic affection that they again lose their reluctance to be touched.

But of course, physical contact doesn't have to be either familial or sexual. Go to any busy meeting-place like a pub or a park, and you'll soon see some friends greeting each other with a hug, or a slap on the shoulder, or even a continental peck-on-the-cheek. These are displays of affection just as much as a couple of lovers running fingers through each other's hair. Try doing a martial art, a contact sport, acting, or dancing, without being completely comfortable with touching and being touched by the other participants, and see how far you get.

I am glad my aunt and I discussed this family on the train, as it drew to my attention the odd contrast: while the woman used physical contact to establish intimacy with her beau, it was the lack of physical contact—the discomfort—with the children that made plain her lack of intimacy with them.

This gave me an example to illustrate a principle I have for a long time believed: that physical intimacy between friends is a mirror for social intimacy, that is, for how close the friendship is. Just as you can often spot close friends by how they have shed their formality of speech—referring to each other by nicknames, criticising ideas without fear of giving offence, perhaps jocularly insulting each other—so, I believe, can you spot them by how they have shed their inhibitions about physical intimacy.

This is why the team-building activities so beloved of certain types of managers are usually physical rather than intellectual in nature. After a team of colleagues has rafted down some white-water, or built a bridge over a swamp, or tried to accomplish some task without unlinking arms, or whatever other silliness is involved; then the ‘ice’ of personal space is broken, and they'll be much less squeamish about squashing together behind a server to examine it, and much less worried about treading on each other's toes, both literally and figuratively.

There are those who believe that overfamiliarity causes relationship problems, and that “a hedge between neighbours” is a wonderful thing; perhaps the correlation between the increasing ease of being in contact with each other that mobile phones and the internet have brought and the increasing isolation that some people reportedly feel, supports their view. At the same time, there are those who believe that you go to work to work, not to make friends, and that colleagues should maintain a distance.

But those two groups of people are not my friends. They are not the people I tickle to get their attention. They are not the people who walk home from the pub in each other's arms for support. They are not the people who test to find out who can give whom a piggy-back for the greatest distance. They are the people who don't know what to do with their hands when riding pillion on a motorbike. They are the people who wear long sleeves in the hottest weather to avoid showing their forearms. They are the people who won't give their stepchildren a hug.