Hey, wait just one second, and observe with me. Beneath all the big things that keep us moving, this world is defined by so many little things: quirks, oddities, patterns and skeins of social fabric. In this column, we’ll observe the absurdities of life while appreciating the beauty and meaning of that absurdity. Humor me as I employ some abstract thought, niche history and due diligence, and let’s unravel what we can this semester.
As this year begins, I find myself faced with a perpetual struggle, a regular Sisyphean task: handshakes. Whether greeting new people or reuniting with old friends, the tortuous interaction is the same, waiting with bated, sweaty hands as I gauge my acquaintance’s approach — are they going for a hug? Am I relegated to a fist bump? Inevitably, my hand extends itself naturally, bridging the space between us. This is a nuanced art.
A glib politician employs a hand hug, grasping his opponent’s hand in a bid for dominance, while especially affectionate bros opt for a handshake hug, also known as a dap, parlaying formality into an awkward embrace. Does my handshake need to be firm? The strength of my ten digits must surely be tied to my masculinity.
In 2016, Juan Diaz de Leon and Matt Holmes shook hands for a record-shattering 43 hours and 35 minutes. So, maybe you can spare just a minute, hold my metaphorical hand and then we can take a look at what really binds us together.
Evolutionary anthropologists claim that the handshake has been entrenched in human behavior for thousands of years. In a carved relief dating back to the 9th century B.C., Assyrian King Shalmaneser III and Babylonian King Marduk-zakir-shumi I are “caught” shaking hands. As such a key tenet of the human psyche, there must be an underlying, deeper significance.
As the stories go, when Romans shook hands, they did so to let the other know they came in peace. They invite their acquaintances to regard their pacifism with kindness, empathy and equivalent love. Handshakes bridge life and death and are employed in Greek funerary art to give family members a closing clasp. They hold near and tight, but promise nothing, for the empty hand moments later is all but guaranteed. Look closely at Michelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam” and you may see the fleeting remnants of a handshake between God and his progeny, the intimate connection between man and the divine intertwined with the faith formed by the space between their fingertips. A handshake is sacred wrought from the mundane.
Science tells us that our hands meet in an exchange of chemosignals — that we subconsciously sniff our hands after shaking to suss out our biological opposition. To pathologists, our hands are the extension of “a bioweapon,” an emblem of our frailty. Fear of exposure to transmissible disease led the Soviet Union to ban handshakes under the slogan “Free of Handshakes” for decades. Or perhaps, this was truly a political statement, as the handshake was popularized in the United States under the Quaker tradition. Each meeting of palms represents an emphatic rejection of hierarchy, in both religion and social stature, a tie to the fundamental American egalitarianism that has animated centuries of history.
There’s nothing beautiful about walking around with two bioweapons ready to deploy. I will not beat around the bush any further — handshakes are intimate. They are an unexpected flash of passionate intimacy, strengthening our otherwise sterile, reserved platonic relationships. To show strength and confidence is to grasp your superior’s hand in a tender, firm embrace — to literally display physical love and affection.
Henceforth, I pledge to focus my attention, not on the awkward back-and-forth and posturing prior to the handshake, but on the power, the divinity and the love formed as our hands clasp together, giving up a little piece of ourselves to the other. For a moment, we are beholden. Consider the beautiful bond sealed between us; we are woven into one another’s lives — a codified relation remembered, regarded, even as our hands do drift apart. What a wonderful palmise.
