[3catcircus]

Originally Posted by Skybird

While I see the cultural and symbolic contexts, I never liked shaking hands. Being abused as a towel and have others smearing their hand sweat and dirt on me, simply is not up to my taste, and never was. I prefer an implied bow or, more Japanese, a fuller bow, a nodding of the head, eye contact, or the Indian "Namaste" greeting gesture (two hands), or Buddhist gesture (one hand). I also do not like embraces, hugs and kisses for greetings. Never liked all that. Physical contact, like using prenames, is reserved for very close, intimate social contacts, in my perception: family, closest of friends, lovers, never for foreigners and socially distant strangers or superiors in a social hierarchy, never. I tend to see handshaking as a social assault (=Übergriffigkeit).


Elbows or feet or fist knuckles, as became common during Corona, I simply find embarassing and infantile. I flatly refuse and ignore it. We may be descended from apes, but we don't have to make one of ourselves.

I'd much prefer a quick handshake over everything else. It's easy enough to go wash your hands afterwards.

That having been said, I generally would prefer no greetings whatsoever. Let's just get down to business so I can get out of here more quickly. I don't need to spend an hour engaged in idle chit-chat with people I don't like but have to work with.