I just switch hands. If I am holding something/someone in/with my left hand I have never met a person who could only use their left hand stick it out. They pay more attention to the situation and don’t make that mistake.
I don’t extend my hand without looking at the person so even if I missed something, I am quick to switch or wave it off in one way or the other.
I have never met someone who used their left hand because of custom. It may exist someplace but I have never seen nor encountered it.
It’s the official Boy Scout handshake, which I belonged to as a teen/young adult and still maintain my registration as an adult leader so I can occasionally teach Law and Citizenship merit badges for a local troop run by my neighbor, so accepting and reciprocating a left hander is second nature to me.
I never knew the Boy Scouts were such a sinister organization.
I had a major injury to my left wrist (snapped off the wrist bone), and I don’t like people touching it. I’d leave them hanging, and show them my hand with a “Sorry.”
Don’t forget the secret left-hand finger-intertwining of the Order of the Arrow (or did I just give away a secret - I can’t find a Google image for it)
And so very gauche! :o
If that’s an old school Simpsons reference then I’m very impressed!
I read this as “Someone offers you a left handed MILKshsake” and was thoroughly confused, but excited to have my ignorance fought…now i am disappointed and embarrassed. So embarrassed, I wish you all were dead.
Sounds like someone else already did.
If they extend their left I’ll extend my left. If I’ve already extended my right and they reach for it with their left, I’ll leave it at that and shake as best I can.
I can’t actively move my right arm for the next month so I’m giving a lot of left handed handshakes right now. Normally I’m in my doing so people get it and shake with their left. Today during a long meeting I removed my sling and left my arm dangling by the end of the meeting I guess the guy I was meeting with forgot so he offered his right. I just told him sorry and kind of nodded at my bum shoulder then extended my left hand. He shook it with his left.
Even if they put their left hand out first I will inevitably still put my right hand out simply by force of habit. I will however, then immediately retract it and quickly replace it with my left hand. Touching the top of another guy’s hand sets off the homophobe alarm real quick*!* 
Happens constantly with news shooters because the right hand is tied up with the camera, so left to right grab, left to left shake, fist bump, elbow bump or laugh all work as needed.
Because seriously, who gives a shit really?
I have to do this quite often…guess my right hand is often up to mischief.
What’s funny is how hesitant people are, and then they shake your left hand very gently. It’s like “OK, I’ll try this wacky left hand idea of yours… My God, it worked!”
I’d extend my left hand… but at the last moment, pull it away, press my thumb to my nose, and wiggle my fingers in the time-honoured manner.
Muslims do.
Literally.
I’d do a Moe Howard.
Feign surprise, then anger, say “oh, wise guy hey?” followed by an eye poke, nose pull, and slap.
Am I being whooshed or are people genuinely thrown by a left handed handshake? Is there some etiquette I’m missing that says you must only ever shake with your right hand? I genuinely have no idea which hand I offer if I’m the first one to do so and now I’m paranoid.
Yes. If you have to ask this, you were never a young left-handed child who had to endure lectures about how we only shake hands with our right hands. The explanation we got was usually because people wipe with their left hands… which might be true of them.
nm