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Handshakes

Fawkes said:
perhaps, i'm misinterpreting it and it's the polite thing to do, but i find it slightly off-putting when i extend my hand for a confident handshake and the dude on the other end, lightly grabs my fingers and gives it a gentle shake. i guess they're expecting to give me something like this:

feminine_handshake.jpg


and since that's not the way i'm extending my hand, it's awkward. for pete's sake, i may be a petite woman but i can handle a firm fucking handshake! :X
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Chicks are notorious limp shakers so he's probably just trying to do you a courtesy and save your dainty knuckles. =D
 
I shake hands with every client I see, which is usually 10-20 a day, and I find women are more the "hang the hand out and come to me" type of shaker where as most men are more of a "seek contact and shake". Women generally expect you to do all the work when it comes to shaking hands. Next time Fawkes try and make the initial "hit" and see how firm the hand shakes become.
 
Fawkes said:
i'm a hugger. i normally hug my friends and family hi and bye. if it's someone i don't know well, i just give a "hey" and nod.

i shake hands only in a formal/business setting, though as a woman, i'm rarely greeted with anything but flimsy handshakes from men.

perhaps, i'm misinterpreting it and it's the polite thing to do, but i find it slightly off-putting when i extend my hand for a confident handshake and the dude on the other end, lightly grabs my fingers and gives it a gentle shake. i guess they're expecting to give me something like this:

feminine_handshake.jpg


and since that's not the way i'm extending my hand, it's awkward. for pete's sake, i may be a petite woman but i can handle a firm fucking handshake! :X
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OMG this drives me nuts! I hate 'shaking' hands with someone who extends like this. Just give me a normal firm shake. :X
 
spacejunk said:
germaphobes should be glad that not all cultures do the 'kiss on each cheek' thing ;)
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I am so glad that the area I live in is not one of these. Whenever I go to my dad's house, where his family (...his family is not my family. That's the long story made short.) are real kissy people for saying goodbye, I always come away being sick. Maybe I just have a shitty immune system, but I'll take handshakes/hugs over kisses with strangers. :P

spacejunk said:
limp seems to indicate awkwardness or discomfort.
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I Eat Pho said:
The weak one is just gay.
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What about someone who works in a profession where their hands are supposed to be gentle, like a doctor or a surgeon? Met with an oral surgeon awhile back who had the limpest handshake my mom or I had ever encountered. We were both weirded out by it until later when we talked about how it's probably a good thing he has a gentle grip.
 
Yea I also kinda feel like the "seek and destroy" handshake (rofl) is overbearing, like the person is trying to prove theyre the alpha male or something.

I have big hands and could probably out-grip most people i know, but i stay on the weaker side of the handshake spectrum unless i know the person is gonna crush my knuckles beforehand.

And im definately guilty of soft-shaking girls, i assume thats pretty standard.
 
Cool thread. It is a rather interesting topic. Like someone said earlier, I shake hands with males when meeting them for the first time, or friends that I haven't seen for a while. I kiss females on the cheek. I kiss my grandmothers on the cheek every time I see them.

Some of my friends I always shake hands with when I see them. They're usually more outgoing or extroverted by nature. Rarely a regular handshake in these cases. With one of my friends it's a wide reaching prime then slap and grab (we make eye contact, then extend our arms below our waist and out to the right. Then swing our arms so that we slap hands just below chest level. When our hands slap together we lock our hands in a grab.) It's oftem a really wide reaching fast swing.

Another friend I usually do a pound-hug with (as P-Diddy is doing in that picture Busty posted).

Another friend I usually do the hand-grab then fist bump to fist bomb. The fist bomb is a slow motion backwards moving motion of the hand, to indicate the explosion. Recently I instated the "duck away". Where you do a fist bump, then, in a parody of the fist bomb, you move your hand backwards, snapping your fingers together with your thumb, making duck "quack" noises. Hence, duck away. If you wish to make it a duck away, you shout "duck away" just as you fist bump, so the other person knows to duck away. Your hand looks like this during the duck away:

NSFW:
Silentduck.jpg


Busty St Clare said:
Then to confuse matters more there is also the "hongi" especially when meeting some of my friends grandparents...
NSFW:
hongi-kissing.jpg


Hongi.jpg
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It's kind of funny that I do that greeting with my cats, but I can't think of any person that I would feel comfortable doing that greeting with, unless I was romantically involved with them.
 
My handshakes are pretty boring: firm, one or two pumps, and release. I expand on that only with close friends. Like most people, I only shake hands when meeting for the first time; in a formal setting, I may shake twice on departure. Limp handshakes bug the hell out of me, even from women.
 
i have a rather firm handshake. people tell me i shake hands like a guy. sometimes it leads to jokes about what else i firmly grip. i find it really annoying how some people will try to turn anything into a sexual situation.
 
Sometimes, when someone offers the fist bump and I am anticipating the hand shake, I'll go for the fist grab and shake

hand-grab-fist.JPG
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik7VMUz_FlI
^So determined to learn that handshake.

I love fucking with people when they go to fist pound. There's race car, snail, and jellyfish, but it's hard to explain without actually seeing it. Trust me on this.
Oh, and when someone goes to high-five you, make a fist with your thumb pointing at you, and receive their high five like that. Turkey!
 
I'm a girl and am definitely a firm hand shaker. I don't crack bones or anything, but i don't understand a weak handshake. In women i find it really off-putting and confusing when i receive a limp hand, and in men, i just find it insulting. Even if i'm given a limp hand to shake, i'll hold it the way i usually would. I like seeing the look of surprise that a man will try to hide when he realises that i've given that little limp hand a firm shake.

With newly introduced acquaintances, i'll always shake a hand, but with anyone that i know well, i'm always a hugger. I love a good hug and feel the same way about hugs as i do about handshakes. I certainly don't expect a bear hug from everyone, but seriously, don't even bother trying to hug me if you're going to stand 1 ft away from me and lightly pat me on the back. When people do that, i have to stop myself from saying "there there... there there... there there". :p
 
nuttynutskin said:
It may be antisocial, but it's really fun to do to the people with the limp shakes. =D
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hehe, i admit that i have been guilty of this when in a work situation, especially when dealing with men who are more senior than me. They certainly don't get away with it.

When not in a work situation, i've actually called a guy out when he offered me a limp hand to shake. I sat him down and schooled him on how to shake hands with someone of the opposite sex (not crushing, but definitely not limp).
 
One thing I liked about NA, people always hugged, women and men, at AA people would usually shake and look at you weird if you went for a hug.. guess it shouldn't be surprising that druggies would be about hugs (aka hugs not drugz) even when its 80-90% heroin addicts and only a few, but there are some, there for XTC, ketamine, etc, club/rave/party type drugs.. and the alkies are weirded out by hugs..

As far as handshakes.. I'd usually only do a formal/normal type handshake if in a work environment, and when I worked at pizza places as a delivery not even then, they were always ghetto, even the bosses and we'd fist pound..

Usually with friends it ranges from hugs, to the "hand pull to fist pound to fist bump" or just the bump or pound.. I never learned the gangster handshakes with the throw up your gang- then throw down whatever gang your against, had friends that were bangers and tried to teach me but I couldn't be fucked to learn, and didn't make sense and I am and have always been a nuetron.. nuetron bomb baby.. LOL..
 
It's interesting to read how other guys shake non-business related females' hands... When I was younger, I used to do a handshake like Fawkes posted but with my other hand over the top, basically sandwiching her hand between mine. As I got older I stopped doing this. Now I do a preemptive wave instead, but am curious as to what others do since this doesn't work in more formal situations.

Oh, and lol at the hongi, I really hope to never have to do that.
 
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It sounds perhaps a little sexist, but I'd prefer a handshake and gentle kiss on the cheek for less formal female introductions. A lot of the time women just don't know how to shake and it seems to break the ice more, especially if they are friends/ new girlfriends of a good male acquaintance. It is almost like telling them you accept them into your group. Depending on your friend you might want to reconsider sliping in the tongue and the reach around arse grab ;)

Pegasus I'd hongi the shit out of you ;)
 
alasdairm said:
this. plus look them in the eye when you're doing it.

alasdair
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Right on...If it is somebody that i've known from past & they dont make eye contact when first seeing again, I'll throw my hand out, if he responds with eye contact - normal shake, if no eye contact might have to sqeeze the tendon's till
he looks
 
with some people i do the classic shake
others i do a fist bump
others i do the slap and slide till fingers lock together shake

my preference to kind of shake also continually changes sporadically
 
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