Greeting the New Normal

Greeting the New Normal

by Thomas Pease

1,011 words

Hunkering down against the coronavirus has produced some unexpected benefits: light traffic, more family time, renewed focus on a hobby. Scientists, too, have recorded significant benefits:  clean air in major cities, clear rivers that usually flow muddy, dolphins near Venice. Even Earth appears to have settled in, with fewer recorded seismic disruptions. We’ve  grown to appreciate a general calm that didn’t exist previously, although it wasn’t the intended goal, and we achieved it at significant cost. Some of us wish to see the positive changes brought on by social distancing preserved in the new normal, even though preserving them may be impossible.

One change I welcome, and which I have confidence will not return, is the awkward custom of shaking hands. Not only is it a clear health hazard, it’s also an archaic tradition that catches me off guard and makes me feel self-conscious. The handshaking custom precedes the oldest family tree, extending back to Medieval times or before, when shaking hands indicated the individual did not wield a weapon. In other words, it was a gesture to instill trust. Given Americans’ propensity to carry concealed weapons, the handshake no longer signals an unarmed rival.

Handshaking does nothing to improve our safety. In fact, it jeopardizes it. Nonetheless, during the swine flu epidemic, some people continued to insist on shaking hands. I discovered this during parent-teacher conferences at the school where I teach. Despite the fact that swine flu had sickened many, some parents insisted on shaking my hand. Every time I caught a brief break between meetings, I would flee to the staff lounge to perform a surgeon’s hand scrub. Unfortunately, my sanitized hands remained that way only until the start of the next conference, a matter of minutes.

My aversion to hand shaking extends to early childhood and involves memories of painful social situations. I recall being dressed in a sailor’s suit and shiny shoes, bangs plastered to one side with a rough palm and spit. It could have been a wedding or a funeral, or a brunch for a visiting relative. Whatever the occasion, my attendance was not voluntary, nor was my attire.

“Come shake hands with Mr. and Mrs. Masterson. Oops! Your right hand. Thatta boy.”

“What a handsome young man.”

“So well-mannered.”

And after all that discomfort and handshaking, a kiss on the cheek anyway from Mrs. Masterson, her coffee breath a form of smelling salts.

With age, the act of shaking hands only grew more confusing. When picking up a date, should the boy shake hands with his date’s mother and father, or just her father? And he definitely shouldn’t begin the evening by shaking hands with his date, as this would establish a far too formal tone, though it might be the only physical contact of the evening.

Even in adulthood, the hand shake is a perpetual source of awkwardness. Again, does a man shake a woman’s hand? Some social standards say yes, some say no. It causes a stumble, a moment of social indecision, like holding a door open for a woman the way a man has been taught, then shooting through ahead of her, panicked that he might be viewed as sexist. Sometimes when shaking hands with a woman, my hand half extends, then retracts and gets buried in my pocket. The custom appears just as confusing for women, judging from how they lurch forward and backward with me, as if on opposite ends of a crosscut saw.

But the handshake can be downright damaging for males. From the time we are introduced to the handshake as toddlers in sailor suits (my mom’s idea, not my dad’s), we are told to keep our hand rigid. If we are men, (manly men, that is!), a firm handshake is the sign of physical strength and moral fortitude. For some men, the handshake is a power play, a display of force. How hard can they squeeze the other guy’s hand? Can they elicit a yelp of pain or drop him to his knees? Our very own leader uses the handshake to assert his superiority. President Trump has demonstrated his global dominance through a signature “clasp and yank” used on Putin, Macron, Trudeau, and other world leaders.

In the professional realm, a handshake is all but mandatory. And yet, it’s an inaccurate and unfair criterion for measuring character or job skills. The handshake is an outdated and misunderstood artifact that should be repatriated with the knights and damsels of the Middle Ages.

A few years ago, I fell and cut my hand on a sharp rock outcrop. I attended a friend’s wedding two days later. One part of the wedding ceremony called for greeting nearby guests. This required … shaking hands. Not just one person’s hand, but a gauntlet of hands. I waved my bandaged right hand aloft like a shield, deflecting hand jabs. But occasionally a guest would parry and thrust his/her hand a second time. I would be forced to intercept it with my left and deliver a squeeze, light and quick, like the pulse of a frightened sparrow.

Undoubtedly, some people will be inconvenienced by the elimination of the handshake. It will pose a dilemma for gym gorillas who perform a bro handshake with their spotters after every set of squats. It will prove particularly painful for those cool cats and youthful toughs who perform elaborately choreographed handshakes not easily replaced by high fives or chest bumps. Politicians will be at a complete loss without the handshake.

As for me, I’m already celebrating. When the director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases recently declared the handshake dead, I filled my wine glass a second time. Given my  traumatic history with the handshake, I welcome its demise. When we return to a new normal, I’ll mourn the loss of quiet streets, clean air, and clear streams. But I’ll enthusiastically embrace— from six feet away— a new form of greeting with a bow or a curtsy, with a series of hand signals, or maybe, with a howl of relief.