A germy, flawed ritual — let’s not bring back the handshake

Leave behind this tiring law of the jungle and try a different dance, says Ryk Goddard

THE handshake is a gesture that in theory equalises, but do you find it rapidly descends into a tool for the expression of dominance?

In our modern world of nuanced consent, the fact that we are forced into this physical negotiation with every single person we meet seems to fly in the face of the spirit of free will. Shouldn’t we at least be able to express choice in how we meet new people?

Also, it’s germy. A 2015 Israeli study filmed people shaking hands and guess what a majority of people do after? They sniff their hand. Why? Because when we shake hands we transfer a chemical signature. They do it subtly by the way. It looks like a nose touch, or a hair flick. But that’s what’s happening. It turns out handshaking is pretty much the same as two dogs sniffing each other’s butts.

If you’re going to do business with someone, you probably need to get across their pheromones eventually. But in a first meeting?

In a digital age perhaps it makes more sense to establish who is the faster rather than the stronger. Why can’t we fight a laser tag duel? Or play a quick round of Fortnite? Or write a correctly spelled text message? You can find out whether they’re a team player or the sort of person who will just turn around and kill you early on to get the win.

Handshaking may have its roots in showing you are weaponless, or may have been a Quaker rejection of bowing, doffing hats and curtsying. One theory says it is about sharing germs with another person to bond. If one of us is going to die we are both going down together! Not COVID-friendly.

Each year I teach presentation skills to people from all over the world at UTAS and I always run a mini session on handshakes. Big blokes who you think would be comfortable with handshakes are so terrified in the male-eat-male world that they tend to over-squeeze and over-pump. Others find the process of getting ritually dominated unbelievably fatiguing. Physical dominance definitely has a place in the sporting arena, but in the world of doing business or meeting relatives at a family barbecue surely establishing equality is more important than the law-of-the-jungle game that establishes who is the biggest monkey in the group.

What’s really interesting in my workshops is how angry some women get about handshakes; the fact that sometimes men just won’t