Greetings...

[gazzyk1ns]

I was about to post the below in the "I've got nothing of worth to say" thread, but I thought I'd create a new one... I'll simply paste the quote which prompted my reply and then what I typed:

Sheepy's nob tale

And to think I've shaken hands with you!!!

That's an interesting point, about shaking hands - was it at a meet that you shook hands with him? I quit 6th form to get a job when I was 17 and since just after then, it's been an automatic reaction to shake hands with 99% of people I meet for the first time, the only exception being if I'm really drunk, or I'm meeting loads of new people.

But I think a lot of people think it's a bit strange, i.e. overly formal - a friend made a comment not so long ago about me shaking hands with a uni mate of his, and then recently my boss said he thought it was a bit strange that I shook hands with him upon meeting him (bearing in mind I'm just a labourer/gardener-person). It's made me really wary of what I do when I meet new people now, I wouldn't say I panic over the decision but I do think "Oh god, which option shall I take, are they going to think I'm inpolite/a weirdo...". I was especially surprised about my boss saying he thought it was a bit funny, I know I'm only a dirty spade-monkey and he's not that much older than me (29 I think) but I still thought a handshake was expected!

Another awkward situation arises for me, when I'm meeting younger people or.. well, metallers... they extend their hand and I automatically go to do a proper handshake, but they want to do that silly sideways, "arm-wrestling-style" one. Not really a "problem" though.

So what do you do upon meeting new people in situations similar to above? What awkward situations have arisen for you? How do you judge how to greet someone?

[hencole]

I
Another awkward situation arises for me, when I'm meeting younger people or.. well, metallers... they extend their hand and I automatically go to do a proper handshake, but they want to do that silly sideways, "arm-wrestling-style" one. Not really a "problem" though.

Confuses the hell out of me that. My immediate reaction is to punch them in the face.

It was only since I was about 20 that people start shacking hands I've found. I never shake hands with people I knew before that time  for some reason.

What annoys me though is people who feel the need to crush you hand when shacking as if your going to think they're a better person for it.

[king mob]

What annoys me though is people who feel the need to crush you hand when shacking as if your going to think they're a better person for it.

The other side is the wimpy handshake that feels like egg yolk being hugged round your hand.

Ugh!

[mook]

What annoys me though is people who feel the need to crush you hand when shacking as if your going to think they're a better person for it.

hehe, that's happened to me everytime I've met a new girlfriend's father. It must be a paternal thing, like they're trying to say "Right you nasty looking little oink, if you knock her up or try to do her up the poo-chute, I'm going to squeeze your nads twice this hard."

I can see myself doing the same if I ever get round to having a daughter.

[Lady Beany]

My other half does the above trick with every male friend of mine that he meets.  He won't mention it til later that night though, and he says it with such pride.  'Yeh, he was SO shocked at how I squeezed his hand! Ha ha!'

Why?  I don't see what doing that achieves... apart from a kick in the balls from yours truly that is.

[MojoJojo]

I want to learn the trick where you roll their knuckles together, that hurts like buggery. That will teach the bastards.

I don't like shaking hands in social situations. I am not sure if it is because it is too formal, or if I find it strange in the same way that someone saying "Hello, I am not carrying a weapon" strange. Which is what you are doing. Strange and slightly worrying.

Or it could be I just want you to get out of my personnal space.

[Gazeuse]

I shook hands with Sheepy at the Much Hadham mini-meet. There was only the two of us, but I would always shake hands on meeting a stranger.

I go to a lot of casual work meetings and 'shaking' is the thing to do unless it's a lady person who I've met before, in which case a 'mwah' or two will be in order. I conciously dry my hand in preparation and go for a firm but not over strong grip. On one occasion, I shook hands with a wing commander and he gripped very hard, so I 'tightened up'...He got stronger too and I finished up with a particularly hard squeeze. Therefore, I won. I don't quite know why that happened.

I only kiss one of my male mates hello...The rest I don't, unless one particular mate has his missus with him who is a lot younger than us and is accustomed to doing a big hug, after which it seems silly not to shake hands with my mate.

There are younger people of my aquaintance who will do the shake/twist/pull thing (You seem to have to bare your upper teeth a bit while doing this) but it all seems to happen quite naturally and I usually finish up slapping the other bloke on the arm as if to make out I know what I'm doing.

[Uncle_Z]

In a busines context I shake hands with alarming frequency.  People I know, people I don't know, people who I've just had a verbal fight with the for the previous half a day (t'aint nuttin pers'nal dude).  The falseness of it all bothers me.  It's supposed to signify no concealed weapons and all that mallarkey so technically I should not have a briefcase or a file in the other hand. Some use it as a power thing - you have to reach way into their space to have a handshake received (I observed that one Mr Saddam Hussein does this).  Gives them an unfair advantage if you are going to grapple since you are already off balance.  Others are all "salesy" and horrible.  Let go of my hand you obsequious little nonce.

I think a chunk of that has carried over into personal life so I find myself shaking hands with people I should be hugging / putting into a friendly headlock for monkey-scrubbing purposes.  *being that head / knuckle thing and nothing more obscene).  Would rather force a handshake and be thought overly-formal (and it does give you the option of going "metal" thereafter) than assume one is not required and leave the other party feeling unloved.  Leads to amusing moments where someone in handshake distance ends up raising a hand to wave.  I can see you from here it's okay.  

Amongst my "posse" of "homies" we have picked up a habit of touching clenched fists cos we is such baaaad asssssses.  Not quite figured out if this is ironic, stupid or plain old acceptable.  I tell a lie, it's just stupid.

[mwude]

The other side is the wimpy handshake that feels like egg yolk being hugged round your hand.

The 'sock in a cup' as I believe it's known.  Remember to look people in the eyes when you shake their hands, otherwise you come across as a right shifty bugger.  Although staring someone out whilst crushing their hand does tend to scream "I have a small cock, but I'm making up for it with the bigness of my handshake."

Or just join the Masons.  "Boaz, my brother."  Incidentally - who are the masons & what the fuck do they do?

[El Unicornio, mang]

Shaking hands with women is the worst, you have to be quite gentle but at the same time not be a complete fairy about it, plus their hands are usually half the size of mine. I also hate shaking massive hands, you know those ones that make your own hand look like it's been swallowed whole.

Apparently, shaking hands came about back in the old days when people would do it to show they didn't have any weapons.

[Vermschneid Mehearties]

Incidentally - who are the masons & what the fuck do they do?

They're a secret organization (duuuh.). Locally, the masons go to their chief Mason-guy at a disclosed location once a fortnight for meetings, and initiation ceremonies for new Masons. I don't know what they're for or what they believe, but I know someone who is in the masons (I've already explained that he's broken one rule already by telling me), and he is always carrying parcels around, and people think he is a shifty creep. He's alright though, and always sends our family a chocolate cake for Easter.

[swinny]

Had to shake hands with a slightly bonkers old woman the other day...as I reached to shake her hand she was rubbing her hands in a slightly odd way, and then reached out to shake my hand...at which point I got a palm full of some kinda greasy slop..."sorry, hand cream" she says..."well why didnt you say before ya mad old bint?" I thought.

[MonkeyDrummer]

Another awkward situation arises for me, when I'm meeting younger people or.. well, metallers... they extend their hand and I automatically go to do a proper handshake, but they want to do that silly sideways, "arm-wrestling-style" one. Not really a "problem" though.

They take your thumb by surprise and wrap round your hand while you cluelessly allow them to morph your hand into Jeremy Beadle's. I'm pretty sure it's a wanker's handshake.

[Lady Beany]

Apparently, shaking hands came about back in the old days when people would do it to show they didn't have any weapons.

And THEN they invented the comedy hand buzzer.  Geni-arse.

[TraceyQ]

I fucking hate it when a man ksses my hand. If I dont know you well, or have just met you, then it's an air kiss to the side of the face or a handshake.

[gazzyk1ns]

Uurrgh to the hand-cream story.

See what I mean from all the replies, though? Half the time I end up extending my hand so as not to seem unwelcoming, but judging from what some people say that could be interpreted as "false".

I do know what you mean about that, though... a lot of the time, slimy people seem to think it might make you like them despite their wanky personality and ulterior motives for speaking to you.

On an unrelated note, one of my mates has developed a nasty habit of shaking hands with people if he's not seen them for merely a couple of days, I find that really annoying and unnecessary.

[MojoJojo]

I fucking hate it when a man ksses my hand.

You should tell them you just gave someone a handjob. That will wipe the smirk off their face.

I do find something extremely annoying about blokes kissing a womans hand. I don't know why it bothers me, but it immediately makes me think they are a slimey bastard, and I end up wanting to hit them.

[butnut]

I've mentioned this before, but fuck it:

As anyone who's been to Japan will know, their custom is a very intricate system of bowing to one another. How low you bow depends on your status in society I gathered. Luckily, they can spot very easily that you're a foreigner, so they allow you to whatever kind of bow you like.  

However, I got increasingly pissed off with all the bowing that you had to do. In the hotel, every member of staff would bow to you as you walked past, which at I enjoyed - it made me feel a bit special, and being a nice guy I sort-of half-heartedly bowed back to them. Not sure if you're meant to or not. Anyway, after doing this about 50 times in a morning, it started to get quite annoying and suddenly I couldn't stop bowing at people who made even the slightest gesture to me and this made me more pissed off. And I continued doing it even after I got home to blighty.

So the handshake is a blessed relief in comparison. Imagine if all the hotel staff shook you by the hand every time you walked past. You'd never get of there. And please don't start a 'butnut is racist' thing. I loved my time in Japan and they are a great people. But like all societies there are one or two odd things that strike a stranger like myself.

[Lady Beany]

When I meet up with family members, the custom is to kiss each other on both cheeks.  I don't mean air-kisses, proper sloppy wet kisses on your cheeks.  I REALLY hate this.  Especially when I have no idea who it is I am being kissed by.

Maybe we should all bump tushes.  Funnier and an ice-breaker.  I nominate that as the way of greeting at the next meet.

No?  I'll fuck off then.

[Partridge's Love Child]

I fucking hate it when a man ksses my hand. If I dont know you well, or have just met you, then it's an air kiss to the side of the face or a handshake.

<Writes that down.>

Shaking hands is an odd one for me.  Most of my friends in London are female, so it's easy to do a greeting - the old kiss on the cheek mullarkey, or sometimes if it's someone I see regularly we don't even bother with that.  However, when I go back to Yorkshire and see the male friends I grew up with, greeting is a strange old goat.  I'm a very tactile person, and if I see someone I love who I haven't seen for ages I want to give them a big hug.  Shaking hands with someone I grew up with, with whom I spent so much of my formutive years, whose hair I have probably held during alcoholic vomitary, seems so formal and stand-offish.  I've only realised in the past year or so that there's nothing wrong with just shaking their hand, because that's what they're used to and it's what they're comfortable with.  It's not that they're necessarily uncomfortable with a hug, it's just that they deem it unnecessary.  Almost as if there's an unsaid, "stop buggering about, you div, and get to the bar."

Now I've got used to that, I need to work out how to greet male friends who I do see regularly, because perversely a hand shake seems more formal there than it does for a I'venotseenyouinageshowthehellareyoudoinganddidItellyouIloveyouI'mnotgayorowtdoyourememberwhen... greeting.  Maybe arse sniffing is in order.

[mwude]

Leads to amusing moments where someone in handshake distance ends up raising a hand to wave.  I can see you from here it's okay.

Gah!  I hate that.  I'm probably a bit of a serial hand-shaker, so any raised hand in my direction I naturally try to meet with my own hand.  Only too late do I realise that they're not shaking hands at all, they're just distractedly holding their hand up.  I feel a right twat, not sure whether to leave the hand there for a hand-shake which they clearly weren't interested in to begin with, or withdraw the hand only for them to then go for the hand-shake which I've forced upon them.  It's like trying to give a tenner to a shop cashier who then ignores it & goes away to ring up the price on the till, but multiplied by the embarrasment of knowing the person you've just failed to shake hands with.

It's just nice though, shaking hands.  More personal than a wave, but not as personal-space-invading as a hug.  Going round a large group in a pub means that you have to greet each person individually, if only for the briefest of moments - much nicer than a general big "hello y'all".

[Nearly Annually]

I have an Almost pathological problem with all forms of etiquette. If you always demand the same action, eg: handshake, air kiss, hug, nod, nothing at all, then it soon becomes meaningless to me and I want to ring the changes. If you say "Mmm, nice meal," after every meal, how do you bring attention to a meal that was particularly nice? I'm told that this is immature of me, but what Englishman doesn't shudder when he hears Have A Nice Day trotted out? Me, I prefer only to kiss people I like, whether in thin air or on the inner thigh.

The dutch say "Howdo," when they leave each other. It's based directly on "How do you do?" ... They're fucking nuts.




Paul Klee, "two men meet, each supposing the other to be of higher rank", 1903. John Peel likes it (he said so last Grauniad Weekend). He adapted the title to apply to himself and John Waters, his longtime producer ... A man and a dog circle each other, each believing the other to be the dog. :-)

AY is away, nursing his row-embroiled wounds.

[Purple Tentacle]

I love the electric symoblism of deal-breaking handshakes.

"Let's shake on it"... it's amazing how powerful a gesture I find that, similarly if I have a huge argument with someone and then shake hands to make up.

My friend and I signed a joint company ownership document at the weekend (the production name I used at college is now my legal property! Dead exciting!) and shook hands after putting our pens down.  It felt all dead important and symbolic-like.


We then got pissed.

[Sherringford Hovis]

I love the electric symoblism of deal-breaking handshakes.

Don't both parties have to spit on their palms first, in order to make it legally binding? Come to think of it, shouldn't that be deal-making handshakes; or are PT and his partner Gordon Gekko-style corporate raiders, breaking up companies for laughs and profit?

Great thread. I like handshaking with friends, though if they're a mate of more than a year's standing that I haven't seen for a while, they'll get a hug. If I make it to the London meet, I'm going to hug everyone, because pressing your body against strangers is a great way of assessing their physical condition should the situation degenerate into a brawl later on. A great way to turn an unsolicited hug back onto its profferer with creepy overtones is to sigh or exhale thankfully while clinched - the renegade hugger probably won't try it again for a while.

I hate the handshaky thing when it applies to the workplace though. Why the FUCK would I want to touch those arseholes? It's bad enough having to breathe the icky air that's been inside their bodies and all...
To rid myself of unwanted employment-related handshakery (particularly from oily computer industry PR people), I make a big deal of coughing or sneezing loudly into my hand the instant that my opponent's body language makes it look like a paw is about to be proffered. They usually don't follow through, and it puts them on the back-foot and you can take control of the conversation/meeting.