Handshakes

The other day I went to a friend's house for her graduation party, and I had arrived a little late so most of everyone was already there including my brother. Upon greeting everybody i knew my brother said to me "Your goal of the day is to talk to Doug Funny." He was not referring to the cartoon character but some dude that was invited but didn't know anybody except for the girl who graduated.

"Doug Funny" was a rather tall guy who had gone on a date with said graduating friend or something and hence was invited to the party. "Doug" had arrived fairly early in the day but didn't know anybody and was awkward to talk to so my brother being my brother made fun of him in his mastery of ways. I had walked by the kid after going to the bathroom and I felt it appropriate to introduce my self to the kid, to first make it so the kid didn't feel so isolated and second so I can achieve my goal. So i introduced myself, shook the guys hand, and carried on to sit back down where I was sitting earlier.

Later in the night we had started playing flip cup and I was joking around and such and at some point "Doug" and I started trading Monty Python and the Holy Grail quotes which made this kid seem less awkward, although I cannot lie the fact that he was still at the party was pretty awkward on it's own. This kid showed up around 3:30 in the afternoon at the beginning of the party and he knew nobody there and he stayed until almost 3:00 that night still really not knowing anybody, but that is another issue altogether.

After many awkward passes at my friend, whom was the said graduate, "Doug Funny" decided it was time to leave. As "Doug" was getting ready to leave, he was saying goodbye to the one person he knew and since we had such a huge bonding experience, he said bye to me as well and went in for the handshake.

This leads me to the main idea of this rant, handshakes, and the handshake in this interaction was not the tried and true normal handshake which we all know and love. It was not the grab hand, one quick up-down, and release handshake, the one which occured when I introduced myself earlier in the night. This was one of those complex 'why are you molesting my hand?' handshakes. Upon the initial grasp, and while i was doing the quick up-down, he was doing the thumb pivot maneuver then going into the finger-snap release.

I only had one way to respond to this botched transaction, so I said "Oh you're going for the extended handshake? Let's try this again." so we did and he added onto it, this time upon the completed finger-snap release hie proceeded to go onto a 'fist-bump' pound thing to the top bottom fist-bump into a standard fist-bump. Needless to say all of this jazz is completely unnecessary and I was reluctantly going along with the extended, but I had shit to do, I couldn't be there all fuckin' night shaking this dude's hand.

So I demonstrated the proper handshake, hopefully he will no longer molest people's hands and just give the greeting. I explained how the proper anatomy of the handshake, i.e the grab hand, one quick up-down, and release structure. The handshake transaction should not take longer then two seconds, it's short, sweet, and to the point. Grab hand, quick up-down, release, end transaction.

There are two important reasons that this was a situation where it was only appropriate for the standard handshake. First, I didn't know this guy, we had met mere hours earlier and the only conversation that took place between us was quoting Monty Python. Second, I was not given the proper advanced warning of that such a breech of the handshake etiquette was to occur and thus I did not have time to properly adjust. This results in a handshake that is not satisfying to either party involved.

I mean a large majority of handshakes are taken place between two individuals who are not very well acquainted, so why are you going to extend the contact. The purpose is to be friendly but not intruding, it is supposed to acknowledge the other person respectfully, come but keep a formal distance between the two involved. I mean if the two people where that familiar to have a special handshake or at the very least know when the other person likes to do special handshakes, and what the other person does in a special handshake, they probably know each other very well and will more likely give a hug or bro-hug.

Lets keep this simple transaction that, lets keep it simple, grasp, up-down, release. Nice and simple, clean and quick, and there is no room for confusion.