Basic B*itch
The way we greet now
It only could have
happened in early March of 2020. Two women passed each other on the road; the initial surprise and delight of recognition, before one lurched forward for a Pavlovian hug while the second kicked her foot out and reeled backwards, like she was doing the limbo.
The hugger looked in confused alarm at the bucking foot and settled for touching her friend on the shoulder.
I looked away. There is something uniquely nauseating about unsuccessful greetings. They’re worse than every other kind of minor social blooper: worse than repeatedly trying to pull open a glass ‘push’ door when someone is looking at you on the other side of it; worse than asking someone to repeat themselves three times and still having no idea what they were saying at the end of it.
Only a few days later, there would no longer be any confusion about greetings. Everyone would be on the same page. And isn’t it great? There’s been a lot of talk about how Covid-19 will change us, as individuals and a society, and how we relate to other people — I hope one long-lasting change is a broad consensus on saying hello. I’ve been waiting my entire life for government to legislate on it.
Consider: that thing when you do one kiss on the cheek and then pull back as they go in for a kiss on the other cheek, and you say “Oop” as your lips torturously brush theirs in the confusion and then, “Oh, two!”; or perhaps they firmly say, “Two!” and you issue a nervous but nevertheless passive-aggressive, “Very posh!”
This was our daily lives for too long. Now is our opportunity to come into line with the rest of Europe and make a countrywide decision about who we want to be, and how we want to be. Perhaps now we are all neurotic/ epidemiologists, continental kissing is dead — but how do we feel about hugging? Handshakes? Backslaps? The clasping of both hands and not letting go for five minutes in the manner of a nonagenarian? Saying “Heeeeeeeey, this guy!” with two-handed finger guns? Winking? Saluting? Fist-bumps? Small bows in manner of a haughty but ultimately redeemable hero of a period drama? Waving in very close proximity in the manner of a toddler?
Perhaps we could start putting our preferred mode of greeting on badges. But let’s just agree on something: If anything good comes out of the pandemic, let it be this.