Shake, Shake, Shake!

You can tell what you need to know the first time a person shakes your hand. Especially if you’re a woman shaking hands with a man. Believe me, I know. Shaking hands matters to me and, when ineptly done, is second only to grown-woman baby voice as my biggest social interaction pet peeve. Some men hesitate to shake your hand at all because they, what, might hurt you? Might get hurt by you? Whatever it is, they need to get over it because women as handshaking equals are here to stay. Then there’s the men who begin with promise and fade. They start in proper handshake fashion, grasp your hand, and slide to the tips of your fingers giving them a cursory wag. Probably my least favorite of the bunch. Since no man alive today was born in an age of knights and damsels chivalry or Queen Victoria’s England, ending up with my hand in kissing position is weird, patronizing and unnecessary. Maybe if one of them actually did kiss my hand once in awhile, it would be quirky enough to have some charm. Or just gross me out, I don’t know. And there’s the pumpers. These guys are going to show how comfortable they are shaking hands with a woman by tearing my arm out of the socket. Preferable to the others, but still. In Grace Macccarone’s Oink! Moo! How Do You Do?, the barnyard folk get acquainted without any of that handshaking nonsense. Maybe it’s better that way.

http://www.amazon.com/Oink-Moo-How-Do-You/dp/0590206559

http://content.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=10182