Will Americans Ever Lose Their Grip on Holding Hands?

In February 1896, when the germ theory of disease was still new, a Atlantic the author he wondered whether the “good old fashioned handshake” would last into the next century: “What?

Yet all these years later, the handshake remains the default form of greeting in America. We keep extending the hand—thumbs up, fingers relaxed, palms turned apart—whenever we’re getting to know someone or making an agreement. Even the coronavirus pandemic could not kill the handshake, although it seemed for a while that it might. In 2020, Anthony Fauci, then the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, urged Americans to abandon dirty habits for the sake of our collective health (another infectious disease expert went so far as to view shaking hands as a “biological weapon”). And, for a while, some strangers stayed away. But eventually the vaccines were released, the masks came out, and the meat continued to be pressed.

My aversion to shaking hands stems less from concern about virality and more at the tendency of some of my fellow men—and, in my experience, it’s always a male thing—to use the gesture as an opportunity to assert dominance. Their handshake is not only firm; they are vices. This character was named “knuckle-cruncher” in these pages by writer David Hammarstrom Jr. in 1977. Hammarstrom insisted that the secret to defending the aggression that masquerades as civilization was to “get your hand into it as quickly and as nicely as you can, before it has a chance to turn you into a leftist.”

That technique may save your digits, but you’re still left vulnerable to being supported in the same way—that is, someone who doesn’t move your arm enough to try to separate your shoulder from its socket. President Trump is the best known expert of this technique, and you can see it on display when he recently welcomed King Charles III to the White House (although, as some observed, it appeared that the British monarch, aware of the president’s indolence, had braced himself for—apologies—Yank Yank). In 2020, AtlanticMegan Garber he argued that the handshake was not as friendly and reciprocated as it seemed, and that a seemingly weak or weak grip could undermine the first impression. “Respect for the other” is “the foundation of decency,” he wrote. “Shaking hands no longer fits those values.”

But then what is the problem? does fits that ethos. Hugs are very close to strangers. A nod goes a long way for close friends. It’s hard to imagine Americans agreeing en masse to start bowing to each other; likewise, a light kiss on the cheek is perhaps too foreign for our national feelings to ever fully grasp. A number of novel alternatives have been proposed, including contact shoes and elbow pads, but most of them look and feel silly. The most suitable option is a punch roll. In 2013, James Hamblin he made a case that action satisfies our desire for physical contact (“I reach out to touch you”) without engaging in full palm-to-palm intimacy.

As for what to do if the other person refuses to meet his knuckles, Hamblin offers this suggestion: “If they don’t accept your fist and match it, you can whisper ‘Think of the children.'” (For the record, although a fist bump is sometimes called a “dap,” the latter is a more expansive and playful category of Ta-Nes. wrote in 2008dap originated in the Black community—probably during the Vietnam War, according to some accounts; (Today, you can witness more elaborate versions changed before NBA games.) Still, it’s reasonable to worry about whether boxing—of which I’m an advocate—is appropriate in more difficult situations. What? do you want to risk punching an interviewer to get a job?

The handshake is undoubtedly a mainstay of American etiquette, for better and for worse, and that probably means it’s here to stay. Those of us who aren’t fans can continue with our fists, side hugs, or whatever else we can find, in the hope that one day society can count on a replacement. But the old standard may be impossible to shake.