The Absurdity of Handshakes

I was reading Leaf Storm by Gabriel García Márquez and found these lines in it:

The newcomer clicked his heels like a military man, touched his forehead with the tips of his extended fingers, and then walked over to where she was. ‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said. But he didn’t pronounce any name. Only when I saw him clumsily shake Adelaida’s hand did I become aware that his manners were vulgar and common.

There is so much meaning we attach to a handshake. But the act of shaking someone’s hand is so $^%@*%!

(I am slightly clenching my teeth, and my lower lip has curved inwards in a slight frown as I grapple with my inability to come up with a word for this feeling, which reminds me of all the bad handshakes over so many years. Something is very common to all bad handshakes, and I can’t seem to distil it down to a few words, the grossness, the rudeness, and the ineffectiveness of it as a means of social interaction! Sigh)

Let me explain:

Handshakes are primarily weird. Think back to the time you felt really good after a handshake. Not the sense of satisfaction after the end of a meeting or the excitement at the start of one. Isolate that feeling from the act of the handshake and think again. Did you ever feel great after a handshake, primarily because of the handshake itself?

I know what you’re thinking: If only we were that mindful or aware! I know, I’m not too. But the point is if ever a handshake was that good, you can trust your memory to remind you of it, and if you couldn’t remember one now, it probably didn’t have much of an impact. And that is my first complaint: the handshake is mostly useless. It probably started off as something you do as an initiation ritual or to signify the end of an association. Now it has morphed into something else, gaining importance for all the wrong reasons.

Shaking hands is associated with dominance assertion for some people. If not, why do some people press down so hard on your hand in a handshake? If it was meant to be a friendly “hello” or a pleasant “goodbye”, then why the inflicting pain?

This is a favourite pastime of news portals. When world leaders meet at some conference, they will analyse how bad or good or awkward or “strong” their handshakes were, as if that was in any way linked to the points they discussed behind closed doors. I am sure the agenda was set by a barrage of diplomats and bureaucrats on both sides of these meetings. (It reminds me of the Yes Minister episode where Humphrey shrewdly worked out a way to restore the honours handed out to bureaucrats that the Minister wanted to withhold if the department budget was not cut by 5%)

At the other end of the spectrum is the lukewarm handshake, one without any intention. It’s like someone extended one hand forward to be kissed slightly. Then, with the realisation that it’s not the 17th century anymore and they’re not Royalty, the wrist rotated slightly, cupping their palm into yours, resulting in a tepid, awkward handshake.

Then once in a while, there is the missed handshake. One where your fingers get entangled, or you’re left shaking hands with a pinky. That is just plain awkward, where you quickly want to get out of it and forget that it ever happened. There is also the gross handshake with sweaty palms, again, a difficult to come back from experience because do you swipe off the perspiration immediately or wait for the hand-shaker to look somewhere else?

The only handshake I think I wouldn’t mind (only sparingly, though) is the version of the kid’s handshake. While in a handshake, you use your index finger to stroke the palm of the other person while laughing, and if a kid does this, it may be cute. If you want to try it as an adult shaking hands with other adults, please try it at your own risk!

Body Language is to Communication what perhaps Homeopathy is to Modern Medicine. The needless tea leaf reading into how we walk, stand, sit, and shake hands and its supposed implications on so many things of consequence in the real world is something I don’t understand. I don’t want to go all “Hell is other people” on you, but switching to more of the waving-hand “Hi!” instead of the unpredictable handshake could be one of the good things to happen because of the pandemic.