Search Box

Friday, April 23, 2010

Handshakes


I had occasion to shake hands with an 18-year-old the other day, and was a bit thrown by what he did. Before I could move in for the regular handshake, he grabbed the tips of my fingers with his, and then sort of raised my hand and then threw it down. It wasn't a limp fish handshake, merely a different style of shaking. I asked my daughter about it later, and she told me that that was just the way young people shake hands these days.

This was a perfectly polite kid who meant no disrespect. But it reminded me of many previous such transactions. Whenever someone gives me anything other than the standard old-fashioned handshake, and I go along with it, it makes me feel a little phony. This time it made me feel a little as if I were trying to come across as younger than I am.

Last summer a friend held out his hand to give me the fist bump, which is more a black thing than a white thing. This friend is very cool, despite which he does have a tendency to be slightly trendy. In any case, it would have been rude not to go along with it, so I fist bumped him back. But it left me with the feeling that I was trying to convey the message that I was down with the bruthas. The bump left me wanting to cry out, "Hey, I'm against affirmative action!"

I used to have the same feeling when people would give me the thumbs-high-and-around soul shake. I was never quite forceful enough to try to wrestle their hand back down into the normal traditional handshake, and left me feeling as if I were trying a little too hard to pose as a hipster.

Maybe from now on I'll just wrestle their hand back into normal handshake position. With a young person I'll quickly reach all the way in and grasp their hand in the old-fashioned way. And if someone offers his fist for a bump I'll put my hand around his fist and shake it.

That will be much better, as it will leave the other party feeling lame and out of place.

No comments: