Great answers so far. Follow the lead of others, including there body movements, as in, if they take a step closer and lean in, then some type of light hug is being offered, an extended hand, light, ladylike shake. If your personal space is quite large and important to you, then just quickly extend your ladylike hand to preempt the other's attempt to give you a nice bear hug. I have had a thrift store black jacket dry cleaned way to many times for what it was worth when buying it to clean the shoulder of someone else's foundation. They probably had some of mine on their garment too! Then as Amanda clearly states, cultural differences should also be taken into consideration. Like Wednesday above, I am a hugger unless the other person's body language show otherwise, and like Amanda my hugging personality really took off from another culture after marrying a hugging Latina. Maybe my Mom didn't hug me enough??
