Like for friction people have this image of a rough surface each object has which intersect each other and so on. While it's not such a big step I found people being surprised that things don't "touch" each other at all because their knowledge usually stops at a mechanical world view...
If you think that because on an (sub)atomic level touching something involves positive and negative energy, that you're not really touching the ball, then you're wrong.
Touching something is synonymous to 'interacting' with something. That certainly is happening.
Touching something is usually evident by collision or friction related behavior, yet the workings of physics on a sub-atomic level turns out to work with or involve energy.
That shouldn't be too surprising actually.
Don't forget objects can't have friction by true intersection, as even the smallest mass simply will not allow this to happen.
As a result, it's a bit questionable whether it's valid to think of object collisions and the impacts involved as being a result of two not actually touching objects. There is clearly interaction going on.
