That’s what Elaine’s boss on Seinfeld intended when he refused to shake hands with the Japanese investors and look where that got him. Except instead of saying your rather long quote, he uttered the more succint (and understandably misinterpreted), “GERMS!!”
May I point out that this epidemics spread just as quick (or even quicker for that matter) in regions/cultures where handshakes are not the social norm?
Good luck changing a long-ingrained custom like that. China spend millions trying to get people to stop spitting on the ground. But I still see it every single day.
Anyway, I like handshakes.
The ‘SAR’s wave’ didn’t quite catch on last time around.
even sven - that’s because you’re out in the sticks. that behavior declines as you go ea t.
Well, the Chinese also have the custom of eating by putting their chopsticks into the communal dish and that is quite deeply ingrained too. Handshakes are the least of your worries in China where the concept of “hygiene” has not quite arrived yet.
People need to touch each other. This has been proven. Removing one of the rare actual physical contacts we have with people would be worse than a flu pandemic.
I’ve recently begun promoting the fist bump. In fact, I went to a wedding about a month ago and used it exclusively. My next goal is to begin using it at work. But only once the economy improves, because if it doesn’t take, it would be an obvious CLM.
To me, the inside of the hand would seem to be the dirtier, nastier part of the hand. Thus, the fist bump is cleaner, and there is still actual touching going on. What I really would hope is Obama beginning this new tradition. Diversity comes in different forms. Why are we stuck with an unhygenic custom, when there are cleaner and easier ways of doing it?
I’m sure that would make a good impression during a job interview.
A building code requirement that all restroom doors open outwards (so they can be pushed with a foot or elbow without touching bare hands where somebody else’s possibly unwashed and contaminated bare hands have just been) would probably do more to fight contagion and certainly much easier to implement.
I am reminded of a scene from the old Adam West “Batman” show where Batman and the Penguin are engaged in an election contest. Batman demurs from kissing a baby, citing risk of spreading disease, and the mother gets horribly offended.
(IIRC, this was the one with the debate where the Penguin pointed out that when Batman was in the news, he was associating with common criminals, whereas when the Pengiun himself was in the news, he was associating with officers of the law.)
Better yet: no doors at all, just entrances constructed in such a way that they obstruct line-of-sight into the restroom (overlapping walls).
My favorite thing about the women’s restroom on my floor of this office building? Motion-activated soap dispensers… but manual faucets on the sinks. :smack:
The handshake is an important tool in establishing social relationships. You can tell a lot about someone by their handshake if you are paying attention. The loss of that would coarsen the social fabric quite a bit as the knuckles are not as intimate and expressive as the palm. Handshakes has helped two men* specifically size each other up in a very polite manner.
EDIT: *historically that is.
Yeah, you can tell if they’ve been taught that a firm handshake combined with a direct look in the eye is the optimal business greeting. That’s what you can tell. It’s very, very important whether or not they’ve been taught that.
There are levels of variation within the firm handshake.
Yes there are. Just as there are hundreds of degrees of force in the fist bump. And let’s not go into the 10,000 inflections of the social bow. :^)
Seriously though, a firm business handshake just tells you who has accepted and absorbed the rules, and half of those people have done so for the purpose of hustling you.
(well, maybe not half, but all the good hustlers know the rules, and generally better than the decent, reliable people.)
I’d say you’re much better off listening to the details of the proposal, than trying to read someone’s palm.
It’s the impolite handshakes I object to. Squeezers hurt.
Personally, I’m more creeped out by limp handshakes than by crazy squeezers (of course, being a woman I’m sure I avoid a lot of the latter). I always make a little squeal of glee inside when I meet another woman with a firm handshake.
I keep telling this to the women I meet but they insist I keep my hands to myself.
A nice firm breast shake would probably spread fewer diseases!
Damn straight!