"Inspired" by the neighbour thread as it made me think back to an experience I had but never processed properly.
A while back, I had a driving lesson with a new instructor. He didn't do anything majorly wrong, but he definitely made me feel uncomfortable. He kept on putting his hand on my hand on the steering wheel - not to correct me but to "guide" me - and he would linger waaaay too long. I'd already been driving a while at this point, so it absolutely wasn't necessary from a safety/driving perspective. And my first instructor never touched me - even during my first lesson when I had no idea what I was doing.
When we pulled over, he grabbed my hand and held it for a really long time - and tried to interlock fingers - to "comfort" me. This happened twice.
I was still a somewhat anxious driver at that point, so it wasn't unreasonable that he thought he needed to comfort me, but his behaviour just made me even more anxious and panicked.
Thankfully I hadn't purchased a pack of lessons, just the one, and ended up finding a brilliant and respectful instructor who didn't touch me even once.
At the time, I had just moved and had a lot of stress going on in the background. Although the whole thing felt icky, I decided I was probably overreacting. He and I are both second generation immigrants from "touchy-feely" cultures (different countries, but both with a reputation for being a bit like that) and I've had people, both male and female, grab my hand before while they were trying to be nice, emphasise a point, etc. I usually don't mind this at all. This felt very different and quite creepy - my gut was screaming - and as he grew up in the UK, he should have known it's not the done thing. But I gave him the benefit of the doubt and just put it behind me.
After reading the neighbour thread, I became curious and went to check the touchy-feely instructor's google reviews, only to find that he has several dozen, all 5*.
Now I'm wondering what's going on - if everyone else was so happy with him, was I indeed overreacting and/or too sensitive? I felt really quite shaken and unhappy after the lesson, and even thinking about it now is uncomfortable, but I don't know if I was reading too much into it?