I've long considered handshaking a barbaric Germanic relic which ought to have been done away with alongside trial by ordeal, and once you read this BBC article you'll see why I feel the way I do. From reading research surveys and watching how others behave in public facilities, I've come to understand that most people either have no idea what proper handwashing technique entails*, or else they're simply too lazy and slovenly to act on this knowledge; as such, whenever possible I'd rather just give a friendly wave and say "Hi" rather than grab anyone else's grubby mitts. As far as I'm concerned the Japanese have the right idea - a simple bow ought to suffice to acknowledge someone else without having to share the person's faecal, respiratory and skin pathogens - and that is precisely what the disgusting habit of handshaking entails. To think that the vast majority of people compound such filthy habits with a reluctance to wash their hands before eating turns my stomach.
*Hint: If you take less than 10 seconds to "wash" [sic] your hands, you're not doing much more than engaging in meaningless ritualistic activity, as it is the mechanical action of actually using soap to scrub the germs away which counts, and that takes time to do properly: soap does not actually kill many bacteria and viruses, and what it does is simply detach the germs from one's skin so that the water can wash them away. I'm always pleasantly surprised when I see someone wash his or her hands properly, and I say "surprised" because it happens so rarely!
I hereby apologise for shaking your hand a few years back!
It is unfortunate that shaking hands has become such a widespread custom as it is, to put it mildly, socially awkward to refuse a proffered hand. I would be pessimistic about the prospects of developing a social stigma towards handshaking but then it didn't take too long for the (welcome) now common stigma towards smoking to develop and perhaps more reports like this from the BBC might have a role. It is a pity that there wasn't an explicit mention of handshaking in it though.
Posted by: Frank McGahon | October 16, 2008 at 11:31 AM
"I hereby apologise for shaking your hand a few years back!"
Ach, don't worry about it; I wouldn't have cared about the implications of handshaking at the time, to be honest. It took the SARS alert for me to start looking into the issue on PubMed, and finding out just how effective a means of transferring germs handshaking and other forms of physical contact can be: for instance, it appears that most cases of cold and flu are actually caught through first getting the viruses on their hands, and then transferring them to their eyes and nasal areas.
As for the present day, dream as I might that a friendly wave will one day become the norm, I recognize that I won't always be able to get around shaking a proffered hand, so instead I've taken to carrying around with me hand sanitizer I can use in case I'm unable to have quick access to a place to wash (and I make sure not to touch my face until I do get such a chance, sanitizer notwithstanding). Some people will say that this is "OCD" behavior on my part and whatnot, but I find that since taking up my present hand cleaning routine I'm losing far fewer days to illness than I used to.
Posted by: Abiola | October 17, 2008 at 01:10 PM