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There’s No Shame In Shaking Hands
Some people are huggers and some are not
If someone puts a light hand on my elbow then I’ll notice it. An arm stretched around my shoulder will make me think twice. Step forward and wrap yourself around me — pull me in and hug me firm — I‘ll probably wriggle out of it.
Some people are huggers and some are not. To fall into the second of these categories is not — should not — be shameful, but a preference for merely shaking hands it too often seen as some sort of repression. Maybe even a toxic one.
As a form of greeting, I always liked the handshake, mainly because it’s hard to get wrong. It relies on a little bit of timing, but essentially it’s very simple. Also, as far as physical contact goes, it’s intimate enough to be meaningful whilst also keeping the other person at a literal arms length.
In fact, it has often struck me that one of the easiest things about my growing up — as a boy — was the way a handshake could stand in for anything. Like vanilla, it was agreeably reliable.
In contrast, watching my parents greet my aunts and uncles when they’d visit, I’d see the women sometimes kiss cheeks, sometimes press their cheeks together, sometimes kiss one cheek then the other, sometimes hug, sometimes wrap their hands over one another’s, sometimes walk arm in…
