Last Wednesday I had to meet new people. Here’s the thing about meeting new people: you have to touch them. Whether it’s an awkward hug from a friend of a friend, a light kiss on each cheek from anyone but an American, or a handshake from any American, society calls for a physical display of welcoming. I despise this.
Here are the main reasons I hate shaking hands:
1. I don’t know where anyone’s hand has been, nor do I trust the thoroughness of their hygiene practices.
2. It feels unfair to expose my own skin to another’s without informed consent of the other person’s previous and present exposures and diseases.
3. Sweaty palms. Need I say more?
4. Bowing to someone else is way cooler and infinitely less germy than handshaking.
Back to Wednesday: A group of students in my major and I are meeting a Professional that works in our field. It’s a lunch meeting designed to inform us of how different our jobs are going to be from how we presently picture them. I don’t recognize all the students sitting around the JC lunch table, but I manage to bypass shaking their hands with a feeble wave. However as soon as the Professional approaches, I know I am obligated to shake his hand.
He starts with Purple-Shirted Glasses Girl, whom I have already mentally quarantined following her extensive demonstration of a lung-shattering cough. I position myself at the end of our semi-circle line for the handshake; this gives me time to pull out and use my talisman of good health, my anti-bacterial hand gel.
A quick glance up at the Professional tells me he is administering bone-crushing handshakes, and he’s moving fast. I feel that excessively strong handshakes are a way of displaying dominance and strength; if you don’t return with something stronger, you are somehow unworthy. In an effort to avoid touching the Professional’s hand while maintaining my own image of power, I briefly consider beating my chest with my fists and bellowing silverback gorilla-style. Recognizing this as both desperate and absurd in a crowded lunch setting (I would need more space) I nix this idea and brace myself for contact.
Was it bad? Yes. Did it make my gums itch with discomfort? Absolutely. I spent the next ten minutes of lunch silently bathing my hands in anti-bacterial hand gel and wishing death upon Purple-Shirted Glasses Girl for sitting next to me. Mercifully, lunch is over quickly and we all get up to leave. From the corner of my eye, I see the Professional motioning to me.
He wants to shake hands goodbye.
