Goodbye firm handshake . . . hello man-hug
THERE are phases of everyday life so fleeting that they catch on, and then pass by, unchronicled. For instance, when did people start, and then stop, saying ‘Absolutely’ instead of ‘Yes’? And when and why did the current fad begin for filling sentences with ‘No problem’ and ‘Literally’?
When did middle-aged men start shaving their heads? I’ve always imagined it was a practice made popular by ross Kemp, when he played Grant Mitchell in eastenders. Or was if before then? These are topics that history books rarely touch on.
When did it become the norm for dog owners to pick up their dogs’ messes in plastic bags? I’m sure this never happened 30 years ago, yet today it is obligatory.
The double-kiss is another mystery. For years a single kiss sufficed, but then, overnight, the double-kiss was all the rage, and to go back to giving someone a single kiss suggested you were barely on speaking terms.
And what of the current vogue for instant christian names? Among men in the Thirties, it was considered odd even for close friends to address one another by christian names.
In 1933, two mountaineers, eric Shipton and Bill Tilman, shared a small tent in the himalayas. After a month, Shipton suggested that they stop calling each other by their surnames. ‘Are you suggesting that I should call you eric?’ replied Tilman. ‘ I’m afraid I couldn’t do that. I should feel such a bloody fool.’
But these days christian names are in such immediate use that conductors on trains introduce themselves over the intercom as Tim or Brian: you would probably have to apply for an injuction in order to discover their surnames.
The man-hug is another interesting case. If they touched each other at all, men always used to shake hands. Anything more would seem outlandish.
But nowadays, the plain handshake is regarded as cold and distant, and man-hugs are all the rage. In the same way, saying ‘how do you do?’ now appears as antiquated as saying ‘Verily’ or ‘Forsooth’.
When did the man-hug begin? I suspect that even the most diligent historian or sociologist would find it hard trace its origins. One of the reasons I like to read diaries is that they provide clues for answering these questions. In 2001, the playwright Simon Gray mentioned in his diary that he had been to a dinner in the West end of London. ‘There was a lot of kissing, the women kissing the women, the men kissing the men,’ he complained, adding ‘...this male cuddling is a new fashion, probably come over from New York or russia, and I really don’t like it, really rather hate it, especially when they have beards... they’re rough on my skin, and probably full of food and insects, and they’re smelly, but I see no way of repelling them unless I take to dribbling into them or blowing my nose over them, and word gets around that I’m to be avoided.’ This suggests to me that it was around the turn of this century that the man- hug became de rigueur. But then last week I came upon a description of a much earlier man-hug. Derek Taylor was the press officer for The Beatles. In his autobiography, published in 1983, he recalled arriving at heathrow Airport in 1967, having spent a couple of years in Los Angeles. To his astonishment, he is greeted by John, George and ringo with man-hugs.
NOTICING Taylor recoil, John admonishes him, explaining: ‘This is the new thing! You hug your friends when you meet them and show them you’re glad to see them. Don’t stand there shaking hands as if everyone’s got some disease! Get close to people!’
Back then, The Beatles were at the cutting-edge of contemporary manners, and would obviously have been among the pioneers of the man-hug. Yet John Lennon called it ‘ the new thing’, which implies that there were quite a few other fashionable people doing it too.
Thirty-four years later, however, the beady-eyed Simon Gray, who often mixed with fashionable writers and artists, was still describing it as a ‘ new fashion’. Why on earth did it take such a long time to catch on?