Fingers, or Lips...

In times gone by when men were men and women were ladies, it was easy to meet and greet new people according to gender or social cast. A man would thrust a firm (but not tight) handshake upon another man, and a lady would offer her delicate hand to be tenderly grasped, and perhaps even kissed. Women would peck each other on the cheek and pass compliments around on topics from hair to handbags.

As time went on, and bromance and feminism mixed the roles in the kitchen and the workplace, it has become an ever increasing issue of how to greet someone for the first time.

The Romans had it simple. Kiss EVERYONE on the cheek, that way no one can be weirded out by misplaced handshakes or unwelcome kisses. Simple, but now when meeting people for the first time, there is always the first hello dance.

This strange phenomenon is similar to the walking in someone's path dance - where you are walking towards someone, go to move out of the way, only have them move in the same direction, this happens a few times until someone gives way and both people move on in their original direction - with the exception that in that instance, the awkward interaction is over as soon as both parties continue on their journey. Sometimes you may even giggle to yourself about dancing with a stranger in the street.

The first hello dance however doesn't ebb into the past as sweetly, as after dancing between a handshake and a cheek kiss, you stay there... standing... talking... thinking... WHAT WAS I MEANT TO DO! There is no rule or guideline any more except for the one which we place on ourselves.

So as a man, meeting a woman for the first time, I offer a handshake, a proper manshake as it may be, as the simple niceties of a feminine handshake have faded into the past (or were rather trampled on by Germaine Greer and other bra burners) and are now replaced my manshaking between men and women. If you want to wear a pant suit, expect a manshake.

But then you have the people who rock the boat and decide to go in for the kiss on the first meeting. Or those who start with the shake and pull into the kiss. But once you've already offered a manshake to a couple of people, and you're then pulled into a shake kiss, the balance is upset... Everyone has seen it happen, and you're left there thinking, "Should I have offered the kiss to others in this group? Were they all expecting the kiss!?"

I should have been born in a time long since gone, a simpler time before the stupid idiom "first impressions last" was invented. A time, where men were men, and women were women, and first introductions were outlined in etiquette books which young girls balanced on their heads while they learned to walk tall.

But I'm not, which means every time I meet a new group of people, all I'm thinking is...

"Fingers, or lips."