We Won’t Let Go of the Handshake
“We Must Charge at Each Other with Appendages Extended”
At the outset of the pandemic, we had to cling to what little good news we could salvage. For me, this meant the likelihood that the handshake would finally take its rightful place as an obsolete and unwelcome relic of western civilization. Sadly, this turned out to be just another dashed hope.
When COVID first swept the globe, we were instructed to forgo shaking hands in favor of fist bumps (because pathogens only live on one side of your hand) or elbow slaps (paying no nevermind to the mucus-encrusted sleeves we were advised to cough and sneeze into).
Pandemic prognosticators (batting 0 for a zillion) promised handshaking would never return as our culture’s mainstay greeting.
Thank God, I thought.
I’ll take the fist bump, the elbow-slapping snotfest, or any other fine how-d’ya-do. Just spare me the eternally overrated handshake.
It’s not that I’m a germaphobe. (I lie. I am a germaphobe. I’m a lying germaphobe). But let’s get real. Shaking hands is yucky.
Take note, friends: The sign in the restaurant bathroom mandates, “Employees must wash hands.” What about everyone else? Reading between the lines, we infer, “The rest of you swine, you’re free to go as you are.”
Beyond Goat Yoga
If Panera Bread can post notices on self-serve coffee urns advising us when the java was brewed — and they can — why can’t we walking petri dishes announce when we last scrubbed up before indulging in our ritualistic transfer of microorganisms? Shouldn’t there be an app for that?
In some cultures, folks greet each other by bowing. Often implied by the bow is “namaste,” roughly translated as “the divine in me embraces the divine in you.” Now there’s a greeting, safely executed from six feet away.
But, no. Some of us westerners can’t bring ourselves to bow (except, oddly enough, upon the conclusion of a goat yoga class), lest we reveal a modicum of humility. Like rhinos, we charge toward one another with appendages extended, which roughly translates to “the germs on my palm seek to frolic in the schmutz on yours.”
My Palm Wiping Routine
I confess my bias: I have hands like a Night of the Living Dead character. Cold and damp. New acquaintances point this out all too eagerly, usually in the most diplomatic terms like “Yuck!” or “Eww!” as they recoil from our initial contact.
Back in the day, if I was about to meet someone, you’d find me feverishly trying to dry my palm on my pants leg.
And when I sensed a business lunch or an in-law dinner party winding down, I’d try to time my palm-wiping routine so my hands were warmer and drier by the time we bid our adieus with the customary tangle of handshakes — though I imagine my poorly concealed under-the-table manipulations only stimulated perspiration (and, frankly, the suspicions of my colleagues or mother-in-law, as the case may be).
Eventually I discovered that running warm water over my hands, then dabbing with a paper towel, would bring them to a normal temperature-humidity index for about 10 minutes. So, if you and I have an appointment, forgive my tardiness. I had to duck into a public bathroom for a quick immersion. (If I like you, I might even use soap.)
Don’t Tread on Them
Early in the pandemic, we were swamped with media reports about the origins of the handshake — a way of demonstrating that you’re not carrying a weapon. But I don’t buy it. I live in a land where teens show up at rallies with AK-15s slung over their shoulders, and congressional representatives arrive at work with handguns holstered neatly under their pantsuit blazers. I’d be naive to assume that, just because you extend an open hand, you’re not packing heat.
What’s more, there are too many handshake options. I never know what you’ll throw at me. Younger guys have some sort of hand-shaking/chest-bumping bro-embrace; some boomers are still drawn to interlocking thumbs in the “right-on” clutch. Hipsters have a whole pinky-diddling, arm-sweeping, hand-slapping, finger-snapping thing going on, as if they never quite outgrew patty-cake or itsy-bitsy spider.
We need handshake guidelines, as social etiquette guru Jerry Seinfeld explains :
“Sometimes they give you the early release. Late release. Too many pumps. Too sweaty. From too far away. Sometimes a guy will give you a strong grip, late release, and pull you in for the too close conversation!”
The Job Interview Faux Paw
The handshake endures as a surefire way to size people up. How else could we possibly sort winners from losers?
Interviewing for a job? Hiring managers will dismiss you the moment they sense your soft palm against one of their bloated meathooks (and will brag to colleagues how they can predict a job applicant’s success in the first few seconds of an interview — proving that their hiring skill is on par with their competence as a manager.)
The handshake, resilient like a cockroach, refuses to go quietly into the night. It resurfaced post-lockdown as soon as we crept out of our homes, like rabbits inching out of their warrens in the springtime — cautious, but not so cautious they won’t exchange bodily fluids with the first member of their species they encounter.
We shouted expletives at face-masked kindergartners on their way to school and put flight attendants into headlocks, but by golly the one thing everybody agreed on was the need to smear our palms against each other, stat. “Fist bump, my ass.”
While the handshake may be here to stay, we can still hold out hope for the demise of that stronghold of tyrannical extraversion, the non-consensual hug. (As comedian Alex Falcone riffs, “Stop saying, ‘I’m a hugger.’ You’re not a hugger; you’re a short-term kidnapper.”)
But it may be out of our hands.
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