So the other day while “studying” in the SLC I was walking around talking to people. I had just gone to the washroom and washed my hands. I then ran into a friend whom was talking to two girls that I didn’t know. After a couple minutes of chatter, I introduced myself to the two girls. It is at this point that I stumbled upon a revolutionary discovery of human psychology. ‘Revolutionary’? you ask. Indeed, this may very well change how we, as humans, interact with each other.
You see, after having initiated introductions with the magical words “Hi, my name is…”, I consider it – at least in my books – fairly standard procedure to follow up with the shaking of the stranger’s hand. This is usually accompanied with a verbal acknowledgement, usually in the form of “nice to meet you.” It is in this mutual act that we demonstrate that we mean each other no harm and appreciate having created an additional node in our social network.
Maybe I’m just weird, but in the 1% of occasions during which I engage in introductions after having recently been to a washroom and washed my hands – in addition to the lack of paper towels – I tend to reflexively announce that my hand is wet from washing and apologize for not participating in the aforementioned shaking-of-hands ritual or to mentally prepare the stranger in the case that they decide to proceed after having been warned.
So there I was, repeating exactly as I have in many previous encounters, yet this time my brain arrived at a certain conclusion. How silly is it that we apologize for having a wet hand that no doubt resulted from having been sanitized by washing with water (and in some cases with soap). Even sillier, is how one on the receiving end may find it uncomfortable to find out they just shook a wet hand if no warning was communicated.
Now I’m making a couple of assumptions here based on my own personal experience and so we’re dealing with a biased sample here. Let’s just assume for a moment that I’m not an oddball and that most people react in a similar fashion. Let’s look at this from both sides. Why would you apologize for extending a sanitized hand? Should you not instead be apologizing for shaking hands with a dry yet dirty, germ-infected hand as is the norm? On the receiving end, why would you feel disgusted by a wet hand? Wet should imply water which should in turn imply washing and translate to clean hand. I have been given a counter-example in the form of sweaty hands. Let’s think about it for a second, it’d be pretty obvious if the wetness came from sweat because it’d be warm and…moist. Whereas a freshly washed, wet hand would be nice and crisp.
In conclusion, I would like to encourage people to go out there and engage in hand-shaking with wet hands with confidence that you are by no means providing a disservice for not having transmitted millions of germs. Consequently, I urge you to fight the flood of negative emotions as you shake someone’s wet hands and alternatively rejoice in the cleanliness of their sterile, wet hand.
