I would like to share an event with you all that has changed my life. At our church (First Baptist Durham) every morning before the service starts, everyone in attendance is instructed to stand and greet those seated around you. The last couple Sundays Emily and I have been sitting in the balcony because of our laziness and tardiness. While in the balcony two Sundays ago, upon standing to greet, I turned to face a handsome, stout gentlemen–whose name I later learned is Allen because his wife, Suhmer, works at The Olde English Tea Room alongside Emily. Allen and I stood and faced one another. Thenceforth we extended hands to meet, grasp, and shake as is the custom among males. Much to our stupification our hands missed. Yeh, we went to shake hands and missed. For some reason this has changed my life. For me, it shows how cavalier we (but mostly I) can be about meeting new people, just going through the motions. “Hi, my name is Drew. Nice to meet you.” And then that’s it.

I saw Allen yesterday at church. He remembered missing hands. We both laughed.

Anybody out there wanna psychoanalyze why missing hands while trying to shake hands has so impacted me?

I would like to point out various degrees of interest in shaking people’s hands from most interested to most disinterested:

1. Most interested: firm grasp, firm shake, eye contact, warm smile, conveys love
2. Somewhat interested: medium grip, light shake, brief contact, perhaps no smile
3. Going through the motions: light grasp, with brief shake or not, very brief contact, no smile, sometimes misses altogether
4. Dead fish (severe going through the motions): hand feels like a dead fish, limp, light and cold (most common among elderly women)

What kind of shaker are you? I vehemently refuse to be a dead fish; but I got pretty close by missing my friend Allen’s hand.