What’s going on with shaking hands? According to Wikipedia (which is never wrong), the handshake has been around for centuries, dating back to that whole BC period when the Romans hunted dinosaurs. But we’ve complicated that in the last few years with the mainstream emergence of the fist bump.

Don’t get me wrong – the fist bump is fine. Quite frankly, the less time my palm spends touching your palm, the better. But now we’ve got that awkward “I’m going for the fist bump while you’re going for the handshake” moment to deal with. We need a protocol for this. I think that, as men, we should adopt the rule that if one dude is going for the shake while another is offering a fist, you default to the fist bump. (This would only apply to social situations, as the business handshake is too firmly entrenched in our culture. After all, there are handshake deals, but I’ve yet to hear of a fist bump deal. Though that’s probably coming, and I’m willing to bet Ron Artest is involved somehow.) So if you’re trying to shake but the other guy puts out the fist, remember this: When in doubt, bump it out.

There’s also the “bro hug*,” a move where two guys shake/clasp hands, then bring the other arm around for a one armed hug. The clasped hands remain between the two men, presumably to remind them not to make out. I don’t see a lot of the bro hug in Seattle. It seems more popular in Atlanta (where I used to live). I’m guessing it’s partly the African-American influence in Atlanta, though it’s perfectly acceptable for two guys of any race to perform this move. It’s a more enthusiastic greeting than a handshake or fist bump, and tends to be used for close friends.

Which brings us to greeting females – this is all pretty much dependent on the woman, how well you know her, how well they know you, what part of the country you’re in and where you land on the creepy scale. It’s largely unpredictable upon first meeting, though subsequent greetings with a particular woman allow you to adjust your approach. It’s wide open – the handshake, the hug, the hug and kiss on the cheek, the hug and air kiss, even the fist bump is becoming more common among women. Jerry Seinfeld famously wished he would get something out of the kiss hello – “I mean, if you could, say, touch a breast as part of the kiss hello, then I think I could see the value in it a little better.” And really, in an era of overhyped swine/avian/West Nile pandemics, should we really spend so much time kissing strangers? No offense, but I don’t know where your face has been. Maybe next time you’d like to go ahead and just spit in my face?

I’m not even going to get into foreign methods of greeting (though I’m a big fan of a Japanese bow). For now I think I’m going to ask the Center for Disease Control & Prevention what kind of greeting I should use, at least until this whole swine flu thing passes.

- Kyle Cavanaugh

*Wikipedia also refers to the bro hug as the pound shake, man hug, one-armed hug, dude hug, shug, hetero hug, bro-grab, thug hug and hip-hop hug. But do yourself a favor and don’t call it that last one.