I share with President Trump a mild germophobia, mostly triggered by the ritual of shaking hands. I often wish we could revert to the quaint Mad Men-era tradition of ladies wearing gloves in social settings, so I could avoid having to douse my palms with antibacterial goop every time I engage in this most civilized of greetings.
Unfortunately for the president, the handshake is a necessary and unavoidable part of the job and one often performed under the watchful eyes of the world press. Remember when he met Putin in Vietnam last year? Their handshake interaction was evaluated like Goldilocks’s bed. (Too hard? Too soft? Just right?) The Merkel-Trump handshake, dubbed the one “heard round the world” for its deafening awkwardness, is the stuff of transatlantic legend. At the president’s first state dinner, held last month at the White House, French president Emmanuel Macron seemed to offer a poignée de main plus douce after his first greeting of Trump last year was considered too, well, heavy-handed. Next month’s Kim Jong-un encounter is already stirring breathless speculation (and some humorous memes) about how the two will interact. Handshake? No handshake? Blinking contest? Arm wrestle?
As if on cue, British diplomat and first-time author Andy Scott takes the subject of the greeting by the hand. One Kiss or Two?: The Art and Science of Saying Hello is no stuffy etiquette book with hard-and-fast rules. Scott admits he’s just as confused about our rituals of greeting as everybody else, and just as much in awe of their importance, especially in an increasingly diverse society.
Scott points out that in Sweden, for example, a Muslim man was fired from his job for refusing to shake hands with a female colleague; he was likely adhering to Muhammad’s teaching that “it is better for you to be stabbed in the head with an iron needle than to touch the hand of a woman who is not permissible to you.” It’s not just Sweden: In 2016, an Algerian woman, married to a French citizen, refused to shake hands with officials overseeing her citizenship ceremony; this was taken as evidence of insufficient assimilation and her naturalization was rejected—a ruling that France’s highest court confirmed last month.
The greeting, Scott argues through personal anecdotes and (sometimes tedious) anthropological studies, can make or break your first date, job interview, or nuclear treaty.
Although he started his research project “hoping to solve our uncertainties and cure the world of greetings anxiety, even to find the perfect greeting,” Scott soon realized that “our greetings are just too complex, reflecting the nature of our relationships, the culture we’re from and the times we find ourselves in.” He aptly quotes John Muir: “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”
Still, Scott does a wonderful job of describing and categorizing greetings. Among the varieties in his taxonomy of handshakes, for example, there is “the wet fish,” or what Emily Post summed up as “a ‘boneless’ hand extended as though it were a spray of seaweed, or a miniature boiled pudding”; “the bone crusher,” a favorite of Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, whose handshake with Prince William was so fierce it left imprints; and President Trump’s “yank shake,” which pulls the greetee in toward the greeter’s space, sometimes with a hand on the shoulder. (This was most memorably performed on Neil Gorsuch when the president announced his nomination to the Supreme Court.)
Scott offers his take on the ideal: “two or three pumps, five or six inches in height. Any extras, such as the cupping the hands or patting the shoulders . . . are strongly discouraged.” Always keep your handshake “vertical so your thumb is on top.” And if you’re ever in the company of royals, do not offer your hand first; it is their privilege to make the first move.
Being European, first lady Melania Trump, I have noticed, is a practitioner of the continental double kiss, even with people she doesn’t know well. But in 2018, especially in the aftermath of the #MeToo explosion, “it’s best to leave out the kisses when meeting someone for the first time. And when you do go in for a peck, keep it cheek to cheek, kissing just the air: ‘under no circumstances,’” he says, quoting a British etiquette book, “‘should there be suggestion of saliva.’”
Ultimately, after nearly 300 pages of discussing greetings—including one used by the Walbiri tribe in Australia, in which men apparently shake penises—Scott concludes that the best greeting is whichever is most natural for you. Trying too hard is a big turnoff, whether you’re bowing, curtseying, or shaking nether regions. “Seeming fake and insincere . . . is the biggest faux pas of all.”
