A Hard-y Handshake

Last week, I went out to a bar with some friends and acquaintences. I wasn't friends with most of the drinkers, but almost everyone was already known to me. People laughed, I had some tasty (but expensive) beer, which subsequently got forgotten (by the waiter, on purpose) from the bill. It was a beautiful night, the sort that makes you tip back your head every 10 minutes, close your eyes, and just smile while exhaling, because it's just so NICE out.

One man arrived late. He was a blunt-looking fellow, with a head very nearly square, and the neck you might find on a LEGO person (i.e., mostly invisible). He was speaking vociferously about having finished his long day at work. He was the sort of person who speaks so loud in casual, close conversation that you suspect he may ALREADY be drunk. He was introduced around the table and came to me last.

I happened to be sitting next to an attractive woman with an easy and comfortable conversational manner. She was one of those people whom the party seems to flow around, simply because she looks great and talks great and is probably important. As I said my name, his eyes flicked to the woman next to me (who I'm not really affliated with), and I perceived the sort of change in expression a man has when he's supressing instant jealously over a woman. It's easy to notice, in most cases, because of where the eyes go. And after the eyes return to me, the smile gets wider in an extremely small but cruel way, with slightly gritted teeth.

We extended our hands to shake. For those not up on the finer points of hand shaking, it's not usually a contest. There's some unspoken protocol that everyone seems to agree on, which is the best suggestion I know for some sort of genetic factor, deep in our "junk" DNA. Don't be limp. Don't do more than three pumps up and down. Don't use two hands in ordinary circumstances. Make a show of wiping off your hands before the shake, to distance yourself from whatever you were just doing, even if it wasn't anything messy (eating grapes, for example). These are just some of the many rules that are understood by almost everyone.

This fellow came to me with a very agressive grip. Not the typical "handshake" grip, but more along the lines of holding on to the handle of a jump rope, if the other end were being yanked on by a small tyranosaurus. It's difficult to know where to situate one's hand in response to such a grip, but I gave it my best shot. Then he just squeezed. No up and down pumps. Just stationary. Squeezing. All the while, we both smiled.

It's funny how we watch nature specials about wild dogs, laughing at how the dogs establish a natural pecking order. We smile at the beta dogs who walk lower than the alpha dog, and are forced to eat after the big dog finishes. Aren't those animals silly, we say. And how different they are from us! Unbelievable, we say.

Except that the same thing happens today. This fellow felt threatened by something about me, perhaps. He was intimiated that I was taller than he, or that I had to cock my head down to look him in the eye. Or that I had a more appealing seat partner than he did (his was an unfortunate art student with hair-issues and a cold). Whatever it was, he felt the need to attempt to dominate me in the most socially acceptible way. A covert way, which can only be perceived and understood by the two people on either end of a handshake. All others at the party went on, completely oblivious.