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Comment by navbaker | Hacker News Reader

I definitely don't want to go back to the social convention of feeling like I have to shake hands every time I meet someone. It went away once Covid hit, but I have a feeling it will come creeping back. Anyone had luck turning down handshakes without coming across as rude, particularly in a business setting? I've found it easier to turn down using self-deprecating humor in a social setting.

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I miss handshakes. As a young male, I value a convention that requires men to be in contact with one another, and to look each other in the eyes.

I've taken to fistbumps, but I miss handshakes. I also despise the idea of everyone being on different wavelengths regarding greeting gestures for the next 15 years. I don't want to be a part of this friction!

This problem isn't going to keep me from being happy, or putting food on the table, but a lot of good work started with shared trust and a handshake.

> requires men to be in contact with one another, and to look each other in the eyes.

Why? That favors con artists over honestly nervous people.

I can only speak for myself, but it's nice to have physical contact with people. An easy way to battle the touch starvation

Why do you need physical touch from relative strangers?

When you don't want them to remain strangers.

I'm baffled at how millennia old* rituals involved with no-longer-being-strangers are lost on some commenters

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Funerary_stele_of_Thrasea...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:OTArsameiaSockelIIIDexios...

Seems to me that the ubiquity of such greetings across all cultures would imply that you're the exception here, no?

A lot of cultures bow rather than shake hands.

Other cultures require you to get a lot closer than a handshake.

Strangers don't owe you that and there's still a global pandemic on.

Pay for a massage or take up ballroom dancing or something if touch matters to you.

Oh they don't owe me anything, and I didn't mean to say that they do.

However, I am free to decide who I would rather do business with/work with. And as such I am free to prefer to work with people who shake my hand.

As for the pandemic, I don't think it will remain an issue for forever. And even if it does, I don't mind carrying a bottle of hand sanitizer around.

Yes, you are free to decide with whom you choose to do business.

The pandemic has dragged on a lot longer than expected. We still don't have a clear end in sight and some people feel this is "the new normal."

I find it creepy and inappropriate that someone would feel that I need to service their touch starvation to do business with them when they can't be bothered to arrange their personal life to adequately meet that need for themselves. It smacks of something just shy of sexual favors since sex is a large part of how most people quench their need for physical touch.

It's a rather far jump to go from handshake to sexual favours in my opinion, but if you feel that way then of course you can just choose to not shake people's hands. Nobody forcing you to after all!

Nobody's forcing me but if enough people refuse to do business with me because I don't shake their hand, I -- what? -- get to choose between shaking hands and going hungry?

No pressure.

Just an FYI: I'm a woman. In my experience, a lot of men looking for excuses to touch me, such as shake my hand, are really angling to get next to me sexually.

Maybe that's not a big issue in your life. It unfortunately is in mine.

Edit: just to be crystal clear, my reason for not shaking hands is germ control, as stated elsewhere.

What I was referring to is that such a situation is highly unlikely. Even if we do not take current labour shortage and the historic lack of IT people into account I am certain that there would be more than enough employers or business partners who do not care about whether or not someone is willing to shake their hand.

But yes, in general if a society places enough value on a social norm to decide whether or not to do business with a certain person it is possible that certain people will be alienated based on their willingness to participate in such a social norm.

And, to address your edit: I am fully aware that we are currently in a pandemic and I am not saying that we should go around and start getting overly close to one another for no reason.

As the original content all the way up this chain I was mostly referring to a time post COVID, assuming that such an outset is realistic. If not then hand shaking will be the least pressing problem regardless.

I am medically handicapped. My desire to not shake hands is not specific to the pandemic.

I don't really think the pandemic will end without social norms changing. Handshakes are a social norm that spreads germs. I think we would do well to move to something else. In many cultures they bow.

So my belief is that we only get to post pandemic by doing away with things like handshakes. That's my opinion and I can't back it up with studies or anything, but your mental models and mine just don't mesh well in that regard.

You have a good day. I think you and I are likely speaking somewhat past each other and I'm not interested in engaging further in what is likely pointless miscommunication.

Your extreme minority disabilities seem like a pretty poor excuse to attack everyone else you are interacting with to the extreme degree you are doing.

Yes, sure, people should make reasonable accommodations to help deal with your extreme minority situation.

But it is a sure for you to demand that everyone else change their entire lives, and perfectly reasonable preferences, to satisfy only you.

It's impossible to win, if you don't shake a women's hands you are treating them in the old fashioned, less progressive way, if you do, you are looking for excuses to touch them. Interacting with others in any context requires some sacrifices and compromises, it is impossible for the other party to know what is appropriate unless you tell them as shown in my first sentence, and most times it is best not to cause animosity and just go with it. Men do this social adaption too btw.

There used to be a social convention for men not to shake women's hands, still observed in some contexts. However, Covid aside, in most modern business context refusing to shake a woman's hand would look horribly sexist to most bystanders.

I would strongly disagree that sex is how most people quench their need for physical touch.

Not being able to hug my grandparents during the pandemic took a big emotional toll on me.

I pet my dog, hug my kids and shake hands with my friends. These are all examples of how I use touch to show affection in my life.

However, I strongly agree that your preferences should be completely respected especially in a business setting.

You forgot it's not just a handshake. It's often a shoulder touch or a tug or a really hard hand squeeze to assert dominance or whatever other nonsense they read in their book on how to be a creepy con artist.

I decide to not do business with people who expect a handshake. If they reach out I'm already game over. If they bring up sports.. oh hell yea I'm gonna stand up and walk right out. We have nothing more to discuss.

Well then problem solved, and both of you don't have to interact with each other?

I am not sure why someone else's preferences would offend you so much.

Sometimes, different people just have different ways of interacting with each other, and that is totally fine, and you don't have to be friends.

There is no need to be upset at them.

Why not touching and keeping eye contact with your friends, and let strangers have some space?

The entire point of a handshake is as an introduction.

They become no longer strangers via that interaction.

How else would I make sure their knife hand is empty?

Keep your gross clammy hands to yourself, please and thank you.

Hey I agree with you on this one, you seem to have a lot of people disagreeing with you but I also like handshakes. I think they serve a good purpose in establishing a rapport and helping to build a conversation with a new person. Elbow bumps and fist bumps just don't have the same effect. Of course, we're all more health conscious nowadays, I think it's pretty easy to not touch my face after shaking someone's hand and hand sanitizer is now ubiquitous, so it doesn't seem like a big deal to me.

>> "I think they serve a good purpose in establishing a rapport and helping to build a conversation with a new person. Elbow bumps and fist bumps just don't have the same effect."

I hope you understand that someone who doesn't want to do handshakes doesn't necessarily get the same effect. Shakes and bumps would actually be misinformation in this case. For example: I never could work out how much pressure to put into a handshake. So nine times out of ten I get a dude on the other end crushing my hand because he either reads me as weak (too little pressure), or as challenging him (too much pressure). And I have no idea how to fix it! So I just don't.

It's the same consideration people like me want from others. We're doing you a kindness by not trying to read your mind through your hand or elbow! You're welcome.

I find that people who prefer nonverbal stuff often overvalue these as signals, while they actually mean nothing coming from me. They want to try and scry my inner state by reading my face or the way I actuate limbs, but they always get it wrong and ignore me pleading with them to listen to my actual words. I'm a very honest and upfront person, so you won't get anything from non-verbal stuff that you can't get from my words. Generally, the only people who get otherwise are people who've made me feel like I need to manage their emotions to secure my own wellbeing, and I try to disassociate with them.

So you can see why I don't find much value in even trying: the people who I want to know understand and come to trust the kindness and truth of my words, and everyone else gets flung into deep space. Life is too short to spend it trying to live up to someone else's expectations.

Same.

I just go for the handshake.

IME the people who reject it are almost universally socially awkward in other ways anyway, so whatever. Call it a filter.

Of course, handshakes are culture-dependent. Large parts of Asia had always been handshake free unless meeting Westerners.

Never understood what problem people have with shaking hands.

Never understood the problem people have with hugs…

Everyone has a different level of physical touch they desire and a level that they are comfortable with.

I honestly lament that the hugging culture in my wider social circle has probably permanently gone away (if that social circle ever really recovers, considering it was built around small venue music and art).

The permanent loss of warmth in my life is very noticeable.

Hugs are great! But, where dudes can be creepy with a handshake, a hug is much more vulnerable. Hugs are for trusted friends.

As a woman, handshakes aren't always great. Some guys take the 'firm' thing way too far and try to crush my hand: I'm not impressed, I'm angry that my hand is sore. One time that was a bruise that lasted several days. Other guys are creeps and keep holding on to trap me in conversation; usually to flirt or say something completely inappropriate. I get that people are touch deprived, but it lends legitimacy to the touch depraved. Hug your buds, I'd be happier with the Japanese bow in business settings.

I suspect - with zero evidence - that handshakes are a male way of greeting, and women got included in it, because what else would you do, but it doesn't work well for them.

This is consistent with my experience. I can’t recall the last time I saw a woman shake hands where it wasn’t basically obligatory. Men on the other hand do. The difference in behaviors is most noticeable in informal settings where personal preference can dictate behavior.

It's also a standard greeting in north American business culture. Failing to fit culture is a "legitimate" reason to be excluded. And yes, lots of men have expressed that handshakes are a men's club. I know guys do the crushing handshake thing as a dominance game. I'd love to be left out of that garbage without being deprived of equal opportunity.

I can understand the crushing handshake as some kind of game between men.

Doing it to a woman seems more like a form of assault.

No. Just like ass-slapping, it's assault if it's unwanted, regardless of gender.

Like everything, it depends on the context. Ass-slapping athletes are different than Ass-slapping construction workers.

No. Consent is the only thing that matters. Gender and profession is completely irrelevant. It should be obvious that you don't touch people without their consent.

> I know guys do the crushing handshake thing as a dominance game.

It's ironic how an attempt to show dominance is actually such a clear demonstration of (psychological) weakness.

Not sure if it's urban legend or not, but I read somewhere that handshakes started in feudal times: you shook each others arms to make sure nobody was hiding a knife underneath their armor. But that might be another "railroad tracks are the width they are because of roman war horses" story.

Maybe, I've noticed that most females prefer the hug greet over a handshake greet.

I don't think it has anything to do with gender. I'm a man and have the same complaints about handshaking as klyrs, and the person who crushed my hand the hardest was a woman.

Interestingly enough, handshakes started as a "I'm not carrying a weapon", and that war/combat is essentially a male field.

In reality though, it's very much a male tendency to pursue and display their physical strength; that handshakes also become an avenue for this is unsurprising.

Yeah, there are the heavy squeezers, but they are quite rare. Otherwise even women can shake hands.

You expressed curiosity about why people dislike handshakes. I've been in the biz for over 20 years now. In my experience, about 1 in 100 guys are going to do one of the two behaviors I mentioned. That means I can expect at least one every few days at a conference. "Rare" in your experience doesn't translate to "uncommon" in mine. It's not an irrational fear.

I don't consider people who refuse to shake my hand to be rude.

Generally I consider them to be hypochondriacs. This places them directly in opposition to me, because it strongly correlates with their likelihood to be in the 'cus covid' clan.

In that case, there is no way to avoid being rude, because the reason you don't want to do the thing is precisely the reason I _do_ want to, as a show of resistance against antisocial behaviours.

exactly, its also very important to me that I judge individuals over a single polarizing issue and discard anything else that makes them a human. My reaction to other peoples opinion on that issue also totally makes everyone else a whacko and not me. /S

Refusing a handshake is an action, it's not an opinion.

I don't really care what opinions my friends and business contacts hold, but if their actions show that they're afraid of even touching me then like, we're just not going to get on, what's the point? Call it a day, plenty of fish.

I don't think it's helpful to make assumptions about the reason for someone's personal preference or comfort and then to deny them the respect of empathy.

If you're rude because you jump to the conclusion that I "irrationally" fear covid, you may need to consider that you're at risk of radicalization. Just a thought.

If conservatism is radical to you, that's cool by me. At the end of the day, we don't need to agree.

> If conservatism is radical to you

non-sequitur, I think.

Indeed, I don't think his comment makes sense either.

TBH that's a very baffling definition of conservatism to me. Makes me wonder what the root of your defined values are.

First search result, Wikipedia:

Conservatism Conservatism is an aesthetic, cultural, social, and political philosophy, which seeks to promote and to preserve traditional social institutions.

Literally that; I place value in traditional social institutions.

Like my University, my local pub, the office, lecture halls, and yeah, the handshake. Freedom of travel. That stuff.

I think they're more important than coronavirus nonsense. A lot more. Certainly now, so now we have to fight to get them back to where they were. They're worth as much to me as one of my limbs would be, they're life itself.

To be fair, the reason freedom of travel has been limited is precisely because the virus has the power to take away people's lives and also the health of their vital organs (e.g heart, lungs). I think it's reasonable to want to fight for normality and tradition, but there has to be a balance.

Here in the UK we're nearly there. Our government is considering removing all restrictions sometime in the next 2 months (it may end up being a bit more phased - lot's of people are in favour of continuing to mandate self-isolation when you actually currently have the virus). If you want that where you live then consider advocating for vaccination uptake, because that's what's allowing us to make these changes here without triggering a public health crisis.

I live in the UK and my balance throughout has been "completely ignore all of the scaremongering".

1% risk of death. Wait, now sub 0.1%, thx vaccine. Meanwhile schools are still in dystopia mode, Universities are nothing like they were when I went, almost every job in my field is gone, shitloads of businesses have permaclosed, etc.

We can't even reverse it now, loads of it is baked in. Remove all legal restrictions and half of the people are still wearing face masks and avoiding socialising 'cus Covid'.

March-May 2020 kind of sort of made sense (I still think we could have just asked people rather than using legal force but whatever). Beyond that, sunk cost after sunk cost and just an increasingly bizarre game of one-upmanship "look, I can make my life worse than yours!".

_This_ is radicalization - believing an ever deepening web of bollocks and as a result drastically changing one's way of interacting with the world. They don't even remember how they used to live and why.

I stand by my statement - it is conservative to accept a slightly increased risk in order to maintain our traditions. It is radical to flip the world on a dime. (The UK Conservative Party is emphatically not conservative by any reasonable definition).

Fighting against the germ theory of disease is definitely conservatism.

The germ theory of disease is well established, what's that got to do with the price of fish?

A lot of people including me (and I'm old, conservative, technical geek) are not actively social. Not being actively social is not at all the same as antisocial. Antisocial is associated with a negative behavioral aspect, a disorder potentially. Not wanting to have a beer at the pub doesn't make me antisocial. I don't mind shaking hands but, from a medical perspective it seems like a tradition that would best be left in the past.

Disagree on the last part (coronavirus is not transferred much if at all via hands), agree on the rest of the post.

If you don't enjoy the pub that's fine, different strokes for different folks. That's why we have freedom of association, I hang out with my people, you with yours, job done.

What I'm calling antisocial is bans, restrictions, shame, etc etc. The virus is out there and basically everyone is gonna get it, turning onto each other is hate for the sake of hate.

refusing to hang out with me because i don't drink makes you antisocial though.

when i hang out with my friends many have a beer while me and some others don't and nobody is bothered by that. that's what makes us social. our drinking habits don't factor into it at all.

Agree.

> Disagree on the last part (coronavirus is not transferred much if at all via hands), agree on the rest of the post.

Dude I've been in enough public bathrooms to never want to touch some random stranger's hand. You know how many people I've seen go from the toilet straight out the door? TOO MANY. Too many people on the internet who were like "My hands are clean, my privates are clean, I never touched anything dirty!" or whatever. EUGH.

GROSS.

>from a medical perspective it seems like a tradition that would best be left in the past.

Personally speaking, I think this argument is extremely poor.

From a medical standpoint, basically anything that's not shutting yourself in, working out moderately and eating an exceedingly boring diet should be left in the past as well. Good food (Obesity epidemic), extreme sports, any profession with any notable level of risk (Advice from medical professionals is exceedingly slanted to the side of caution), any drink with an alcohol content above 0.

Acceptable levels of risk are part of everyday life, and we're certainly not going "there's a nonzero risk so I refuse to do it" every time you cross the road or leave the house, is there?

> Acceptable levels of risk are part of everyday life, and we're certainly not going "there's a nonzero risk so I refuse to do it" every time you cross the road or leave the house, is there?

Sure but at the same time, I don't go "hey let's do some donuts in the middle of the freeway! There aren't that many cars around right now!" or go driving without my seatbelt on or whatever.

Edit: I also don't fly kites in thunder storms.

Sure, but I'm pretty sure that handshakes are pretty low on the risk side of things.

Moreover, this is a response to

>I don't mind shaking hands but, from a medical perspective it seems like a tradition that would best be left in the past.

I simply dislike the use of a "medical" justification here, as it feels more like an appeal to misleading statistics than anything else.

Hey, I get it - the pandemic has been very hard and very frustrating.

But, please consider that you're not doing any favors to your beloved institutions by being rude to your peers there as a result of your assumptions about what motivates them.

Do you own a dog house?

Your skill in resisting antisocial behaviours has increased to 76! Your skill in resisting antisocial behaviours has increased to 77!

You have unlocked "clandestine hang out"!

You have been invited to "meet up guild!"

You have acquired "partner that actually wants to go on a holiday!

You get coronavirus! You now have 23,773/23,774 HP! Oh no!

Funnily enough, I'm wary of people who can't make small adjustments to their behavior in respect to whomever they're interacting with. If they're incapable of adjusting to even small differences, it's a pretty good indication that their overall behavior isn't going to be so cognitive either. And sorry dude, pandemic rejection is societal institution rejection and thus definitively not "conservative". It appears you've been taken in by a bog standard political con.

I normally just go for a fist bump if they put their hand out for a handshake, and they almost always oblige. I don't find myself in formal business situations often, though.

I have a serious medical condition. I rarely shake hands because of it. I get sick easily and avoiding exposure to germs is an important means for me to stay off drugs and out of the ER.

I work from home. My life is online, so I mostly just avoid the issue. To whatever degree you can handle things by phone or Zoom or whatever, that's one means to make it less of an issue.

When I have had to meet people, I have successfully turned down handshakes at times. Body language can sometimes help sidestep the question. Not sure how to explain that but just don't be "open" to it and some people won't offer their hand. If they offer and I must decline, I'm polite, warm, friendly and assure them "It's not you. It's me."

Practice makes perfect. The first few times may feel awkward but it gets better.

At least we don't have the unfortunate custom of two opposite cheek kisses like the Italians. Boy was that awkward when I realized people here thought I was some kind of Borat weirdo.

Wait to see places where you have to give three kisses!

Famous speakers I’ve meet have intercepted the handshake with a fist bump in my pre Covid days.

I used to tell people my carpal tunnel was too bad to do handshakes. Or sometimes I'd tell them I had just sneezed on my hand.

There was one guy I just flat out told, "I'm not going to shake your hand". Ex-coworker, was never polite to me when we were working together, actively sabotaged my tenure there, had the nerve to look hurt.

Not trying to start a flamewar on anything, but that seems very unprofessional/counter-productive, so I'm just trying to understand your thought process here.

Do you have a phobia of physical touch?

I shake the hands of departing coworkers even if we have a cool relationship. It's a simple, polite, no-frills way of saying "goodbye". You're not giving them grace or anything. Is it not more difficult to refuse and say "I'm not going to shake your hand" than it is to shake and move on? If they were impolite, you come across as hostile.

Just curious for more details.

I don't usually avoid handshakes, but I don't offer them, either. Handshakes are very culturally specific. I've learned to not assume everyone wants a handshake. For example, I've met several Muslim women who felt uncomfortable shaking hands with men, but often felt obligated to reciprocate. In my current job, I run into so many people of so many different cultures that it's best to stay on the safe side and avoid putting someone in such a situation.

And while I don't have a phobia of most physical touch, there are people who use the handshake as an excuse to take a hug. When I identify those people, I try to avoid the hand shake. "Sorry, I'm just a hugger" is not an excuse for violating someone's personal space. I'm not a "hugger". If I don't know you, don't touch me in that overly familiar way.

As for the guy I flat-out refused: it was a game night organized by some of my ex-colleagues, about 50/50 a mix of people who were still at the company and folks like me who were no longer there. This guy was not invited but somehow found out about it and crashed the party. Part of why I was no longer with the company was because he had decided he didn't like that I had taken leave when my 2nd child was born and went out of his way to keep me from getting assigned to projects and even tanked a successful project that I was building.

I also think "professionalism" is highly overrated, especially when people use "professionalism for thee, but not for me" to stymie backlash against their toxic behavior. In the grand scheme of things, he's a nobody. That's not to say I'm a "somebody", but rather I don't think refusing his handshake is going to have any kind of impact on my career.

> "I'm not going to shake your hand".

That only had the intended effect because you constrasted it against handshaking. It wouldn't work if you didn't touch anyone.

> Or sometimes I'd tell them I had just sneezed on my hand.

How many people pick their noses when nobody is watching, and don't wash their hands?

Sit at a busy traffic intersection sometime and just watch people in their cars. It's a lot.

Watch how many men leave public restrooms without washing their hands, too.

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