One of the most awkward moments in life is shaking hands with somebody who suffers from sweaty palms. It’s just terrible. Now, this isn’t an attack on people who suffer from having sweaty palms. I totally understand that it’s not your fault, and that, given the opportunity, you’d prevent it from happening. I completely understand your embarrassment and pain, and the whole experience is worse for you. Because you know, yet you can’t stop it. Then, when it happens, you know that I’m naturally a little grossed out. And I know that you know. And you know that I know that you know. We both hate the situation equally, yet we’ve been forced by society to go through with this train wreck of a scenario and then play it off like neither one of us noticed what happened.
I’m forced by social norms to reach out and touch their grimy, sticky, foul hand. Then I have to do my best to not immediately wipe my own hand off on the closest thing to me to get rid of the nastiness.
Almost equally terrible is when somebody who’s just nasty comes in for a handshake. This is a one-sided type of awful because the person doesn’t usually realize just how gross they are. But I’m forced by social norms to reach out and touch their grimy, sticky, foul hand. Then I have to do my best to not immediately wipe my own hand off on the closest thing to me to get rid of the nastiness.
I guess it’s clear, by now, that I don’t like shaking people’s hands. I never have.
But it’s not just a social norm these days. I’ve had multiple jobs where I was required to shake people’s hands, and I hated it. I sometimes downright refused. Back when I was still a bartender, the restaurant I worked at decided for some crazy-ass reason that the bartenders should shake their customers’ hands when they sat down. Are you fucking kidding me? I’m touching people’s glasses, making drinks, handling garnishes, and usually pretty busy while I’m doing it. But you want me to get this stranger’s ass germs all over my hands before I do it? Or, you want me to stop every five minutes wash my hands and get backed up so my servers can stand there and give me that evil eye that’s just screaming “Where the hell are my drinks!?”
No. It’s ridiculous, and I’m glad that it’s coming to an end.
I think the COVID-19 outbreak is an absolute tragedy. If I could somehow make it to where I shake the hand of every person I ever come within five feet of and it would miraculously eliminate the disease, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Because, you know, priorities and other people’s lives are far more important.
However… I’m going to, for just a second, focus on the incredibly thin silver lining so that I don’t lose my damn mind being terrified of what’s going to happen over the next year. And that silver lining is, hopefully, the end of shaking people’s hands.
We don’t need it. We know that people’s hands are the most disgusting parts of their bodies, yet we’ve kept this stupid tradition going for far too long. If anything positive comes from this tragedy, I hope this is it.
Goodbye, sweaty handshakes. I hate you and I won’t miss you. Goodbye, sticky handshakes. I just threw up in my mouth a little bit thinking about you. Goodbye, forced awkward situations where you go in for the handshake, but they don’t, but then they do, then you just have to stare at each other and be weird. Fuck all of you!!!
Hello, fist bumps. Or foot taps. Or elbow bumps. I really don’t care. As long as I don’t have to enclose my nice clean hand in somebody else’s disease-ridden dick-grabber, I’ll do whatever the new trend becomes.
Yes, I hate shaking hands. I hate people dying of an infectious disease far more. It’s a joke.
Just to clarify, because I have to, this is a very tongue-in-cheek article. Yes, I hate shaking hands. I hate people dying of an infectious disease far more. It’s a joke. We need to still be able to laugh when we can during times like these. I hope you and all your loved ones are safe and healthy. Thanks for reading, and I hope I made you smile 🙂
Left-ish 