Time to Get a Grip!

Whatever happened to the manly art of the hand shake?

When I was growing up, men shook hands. Shaking hands was a greeting ritual; it was the male equivalent of a woman's kiss when she met a female friend or relative. It often sealed an agreement between men for which no paperwork was necessary. A handshake was your word of honour. It was, like your word, your bond. If you couldn't "shake on it" it was suspect.

Traditionally, an open hand showed no weapon, and so there was a trust built in to an encounter between two men. That manly encounter also showed the strength of each man in the strength of his hand shake with I suppose a little of the "I could hurt you if I wanted, but I choose to act like a gentleman" in it.

Women generally don't shake hands, although we've all done it on occasion. And when we do, there's nothing more of a turn off than having a hand shake stronger than the man whose hand you're gripping. Ick! And if that hand is not only limp but damp? Double ick! I once worked a show while I was still at the University of Hawaii with Jane Fonda and her then love interest, Donald Sutherland. Let me just say, Jane had a grip of iron and Donald, well, he was definitely a disappointing double ick.

I have a gay friend in Honolulu who is a successful business man. He has a hand shake that can make your eyes water. It's not just firm, it's crushing. His father was a police sergeant and always told him, "Shake hands like a man!" He went a little overboard. I've seen men actually wince shaking his hand over a business deal. So a proper hand shake is clearly not related to whether you're a girl or have girly tendencies.

When I was raising my son, I couldn't count on his father teaching him anything about being a gentleman, so it often fell to me to impart what characteristics I thought a young man should have. One of those things was a good hand shake. To me, it says a lot about you when you can look someone square in the eyes and firmly shake hands. So that's what I taught him.

But for most of my son's generation, and for younger men in general, there is not much hand shaking that I can see. There is a lot of knuckle grazing, thumb hooking, and palm slapping. But no shaking. What they do appears to be more complicated ritual than substance. You don't actually get to feel the other's strength of character so much as his ability to be "cool"...and remember all the right moves. You don't seem to connect substantially.

I think maybe that's the thing. In the cyber age where you can have a thousand "friends" on Facebook, but actually know just a fraction of that number, where computer games are replacing the neighborhood ball game with friends and school mates, and where being perceived to be cool is just as or maybe more important than actually recognizing character that you can count on, maybe the hand shake requires too much commitment and personal involvement. We don't really trust our neighbors any more. Heck, in a lot of communities, we barely know who our neighbors are. We don't actually touch people any more, do we?

I think it's time to re-emphasize the manly art of the hand shake. Looking someone in the eye, extending a hand in friendship, agreement and mutual strength might just go a long way towards rebuilding a community of trust between all of us.

Well, I could be wrong, but that's what I think.