Isn’t the whole point of the hug’n’shake that your clasped hands are a barrier between you and the other guy? It’s always struck me as a very distant sort of intimacy: I’ll hug you, but at the same time, bar you from getting close to me. It’s kind of like that scene in Haiku Tunnel with the speaker phone – I’ll talk to you, but if my mouth is on the phone and your mouth is on the phone it’s like we’re kissing!
As a woman, I find it funny. But then my dad hugs my brothers the same way he hugs my sister and me (although he shakes hands with his son-in-law). So the whole male affection thing isn’t weird to me. I don’t like to hug my friends because it just seems silly when I see them all the time, but I hug family because I love them, and I hug friends I haven’t seen in a while, I guess because I haven’t seen them in a while.
Dude, just watched it – that’s awesome! I love the “overzealous manhug!”
If a shake is involved then I wouldn’t call it a hug, I’d call it a pat. 2 pats and a clean break. If 3 pats are involved then you have to talk about sports afterwards.
I’d never expect it, as I’m just used to handshakes OR Hugs. So I’d be awkwards and unsure at first- so it’d be unpleasant at first, but i’d file it away as “X likes ShakenHugs”.
I’m a VERY Huggable person though and been told so by many people, so I’m used to getting hugs. If if a guy (That I know) comes up to me, arms outwards, I would just Hug him. I’d ask him WHY I was hugging him too, but I’d still reciprocate the full hug.
But a guy who doesn’t do the hug first, but transfers a handshake into a Hug? I’d be confused and perplexed by it.
So put me down as not a fan, but willing to adapt in the future.
Well being gay I have no qualms with male/male affection but I appreciate other guys may not feel the same. I have a few male friends (of vary degrees of closeness) who I hug, but I’d never do the shake’n’hug as that just seems bizarre - shake hands or hug me, not both.
IMO the whole shake/hug bit seems to be a latino/gangsta thing to do.
As the willing recipient of a decent number of shake’n’hugs, I can honestly say that I’ve never seen one originate from a normal handshake. IME, these things only ever result from the friend-shake, which is more intimate than a regular shake to begin with. Let’s see if I can explain.
With a normal handshake, the hands connect while both are perpendicular to the body, with arms parallel to the floor. The center of your grip is focused on the top of the other guy’s hand; if he held still instead of returning the shake, you’d be squeezing his fingers together.
The friend-shake connects by coming in from the side, with arms about 45 degrees from the vertical. The grip is focused on the lower hand and wrist; it’s similar to the one used for thumb wrestling. In this version of the shake, pumps are more or less replaced with squeezes (or weird frippery involving the fingers if that’s your thing). This “handlock” position easily allows for the man-hug if one is warranted. You just lean in and reach around with the other arm for back slaps; your elbows, already bent upward from the friend-shake, simply fold as far in as necessary between your bodies.
If I were ever to receive an attempt at a shake’n’hug starting from a normal handshake position, not only would I be confused, but I wouldn’t understand how exactly to go about it. If you folded your elbows between you the way you do from the friend-shake, you’d end up with broken wrists…do you stick the elbows out behind you or something? Or do you transfer to the friend-shake position before the hug, and if so, how is this communicated?
It seems I may still have much to learn in the ways of the man-hug.
My brother likes to shake-n-hug everybody he meets. But then he’s a car salesman and thinks he’s scoring “trust points”. I think it just makes them creeped out, but then he sells cars and I never could do that.
Not exactly a hug and shake, but more of a hand clasp and then you lean shoulders in and make a fist and punch each other lightly in the back once or twice. It’s the “bro” hug. The Brug?
The “friend shake” I know is just an extension of the regular shake. You start with the regular shake you describe, but then you both rotate your hands 45 degrees upwards and clasp each others’ hands around the thumbs. So your thumbs are locked, but the other 4 fingers just rest against the upper part of the hand directly downward (follow the bone down) from the thumb.
From this position, your arms naturally follow your hands, and are consequently bent at the elbow at a roughly 90 degree angle, making it easy to hug without changing arm position.
What can I say, I’m a big friendly guy, and like the hug-n-shakes as well as the man hugs.
My (male) friends and I have been hugging since high school. That was just normal around here. My buddies and I still do this. I wouldn’t do it with someone I’d just met.
Interesting - In both Brazilian Jiu Jitsu schools I’ve attended this was the normal way to end a class, as opposed to just bowing to each other. Everyone does the “shake and pat”. You also shake hands before grappling. Keeps things friendly even though you’re whomping each other for an hour or two.
I totally botched the only shake-n-hug situation I’ve ever found myself in. Men don’t hug each other in my world, so when this guy pulled me in for a hug while we were shaking hands I didn’t know what was expected. My left arm was too low on his back and it was very awkward for both of us. I guess I was supposed to simply pat him up in the shoulder area but not make any other contact? The next time I saw him we shook hands and nothing more, which suited me just fine as that’s all I was expecting the first time. I have no desire to hug a man, especially a large, sweaty man (it was immediately after his concert and he may be the sweatiest man in show business).
For me, it’s either shake or hug, not both. I have no problem with hugging men, and I will routinely hug anyone, man or woman, that I haven’t seen for awhile and am excited to see. It’s never even occurred to me that this could be interpreted as weird. Then again, I think subconsciously I do pick up on who wouldn’t be comfortable with it because, now that I think about it, there are certain people I would feel weird hugging, and it has nothing to do with their sex.
