"You are chatting with a friend in a coffee shop," proposes Bernard Asbell:

If you are Americans chatting in a coffee shop in Gainesville, Florida, you probably touch each other twice an hour.

If you are English and chatting in a London coffee shop, you probably do not touch at all.

If you are French and chatting in a Parisian cafe, you touch each other 110 times an hour.

If you are Puerto Rican and chatting in a San Juan coffee shop, you touch each other 180 times an hour.*

"Each of us," says Asbell, "protects his feelings of safety and comfort by living in a 'bubble' of protective space that we unconsciously maintain around ourselves--'an area with an invisible boundary … into which intruders may not come,' says Robert Sommer, a leading researcher of 'personal space.' …

Anyone entering this buffer zone makes us feel jittery, particularly if the intruder is a stranger, and we hastily adjust our protective distance even as we carry on doing something else."

*Based on research by Sidney M. Jourard, "Touch" Study, 1966.

You may think you are getting enough or you may feel like you aren’t getting any. Whatever your situation...giving and getting affection plays a big part in building a successful relationship. But, in many cases one person may feel like enough ISN’T enough.

How do your perceptions and expectations measure up to your mates? To help you better understand, Dr. Pepper Schwartz has devised a quick "Affection Quiz" to help guide your discussion. Take the quiz together and each answer separately. Then compare your notes and discuss your level of satisfaction with each other.

1. If we see each other we almost always or almost never kiss.
2. When my partner and I walk down the street we almost always or almost never hold hands.
3. When my partner and I watch TV or listen to music we almost always or never snuggle.
4. I tell my partner 'I love you' once every couple of weeks? Days?, Hour?
5. When my partner and I go to bed, even if we don't have sex, we almost always or never snuggle."

To view the quiz and additional comments in video form, click the link to source above.

AARP's sex and relationship expert, Dr. Pepper Schwartz, has written 16 books on the dating habits and sensuality of couples and singles.

"Repeating a person's name is a Hebrew expression of intimacy. When God speaks to Abraham at Mount Moriah, as he is abut to plunge the knife into the breast of Isaac, he says, 'Abraham, Abraham.' Or when God encourages Jacob in his old age to take the trip to Egypt, he says 'Jacob, Jacob' (Genesis 22:11, 46:2). Compare the call of Moses from the burning bush: 'Moses, Moses,' or the call of Samuel in the night, 'Samuel Samuel' (Exodus 3:4; 1 Samuel 3:10). Or consider David's cry of agony, 'Absalom, Absalom,' and Jesus' cry of desolation on the cross, 'My God, my God' (2 Samuel 18:33; Matthew 27:46). When Jesus comforted Martha, when He warned Peter, and when He wept over Jerusalem--in each case we find the word repeated for intimacy's sake (Luke 10:41; 22:31; Matthew 23:37)."