Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Hug vs. Handshake

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–167 of 167 posts

Re: Hug vs. Handshake

#161

Post by seanp2k2 »

Rickasaurus wrote: post #109
benjamincburns wrote: post #52

There's always my favorite: finding out if it's appropriate to hug someone you want to hug without it being awkward. My strategy: Approaching from a bit of a distance with arms down look happy and kind of throw your arms out - half "this could turn into a hug" half "I'm just excited to see you." If they reach out a hand, shake it. If they reciprocate, go in for the hug. If they don't, stay safe with the handshake. Th…

Hilariously well thought out, I'm going to try this.

100% Agree. This is 100% useful for awkward people like me though. I'm sure I'm not alone.

Re: Hug vs. Handshake

#162

Post by seanp2k2 »

claudius wrote: post #103
karmel wrote: post #101

Granted, I am the kind of girl who reads Hacker News, but, for what it's worth, it's often awkward for us, too. For men or women! Hug or handshake? Or wacky Euro kiss thing? I find myself hugging after first meet, unless we're at work or in a professional context, in which case I default to handshake. The awkwardness occurs at, for example, work parties, where the party leads me to default to hug, but then I second g…

> Act with confidence, and any potential awkwardness washes away... Please, no. Not everyone wants to hug you, not everyone wants to kiss you, not everyone wants to have sex with you. Default to no physical contact unless it is very clear that both parties are happy with that contact. Acting with confidence is simply pressuring the other party into agreeing.

>"Not everyone wants to hug you, not everyone wants to kiss you, not everyone wants to have sex with you."

Seems like a bit much extrapolation from a limited data set there.

I hug any gender if they make the first attempt, because I'm totally fine with it but won't initiate more than a handshake unless it's really obvious that a hug is in order. It also depends on context.

Re: Hug vs. Handshake

#163

Post by benjamincburns »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #161
Rickasaurus wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hilariously well thought out, I'm going to try this.

100% Agree. This is 100% useful for awkward people like me though. I'm sure I'm not alone.

I used to be quite awkward and reserved. Then I realized that I spend most of my life solving problems. This is just another problem. I can solve this.

The biggest thing - confidence. Just like your 80-year-old grandparent that's scared to touch a computer because they might break it, I was scared in social interactions because people might not like me. There's a lot of people out there and most are a lot more awkward and tolerant of awkwardness than you think. Just don't spill water on the keyboard or download a virus and you probably won't break it. Once you internalize that, you'll get the confidence to fiddle and experiment.

The other biggest thing - discomfort. Focus on avoiding the other person's fears/discomfort and work hard to squash your own.

Also, Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People.

Re: Hug vs. Handshake

#164

Post by volandovengo »

What even worse is the cultures where you throw another type of hello/goodbye gesture into the mix.

Take Montreal, Canada: Half of the population there says goodbye via two air kisses, half hug, then you got the formal handshakes into the mix. Nobody announces what they're doing when they go in, so it's not uncommon to get the hug + two air kisses, which feels a little sexual to me.

To add to the complexity, you have people of different cultures in the city. Arab men for example kiss on the cheek but don't kiss the women. So you need to size a person's culture, sex + the level of the relationship up whenever saying hello or goodbye to people.

Re: Hug vs. Handshake

#165

Post by Unwitnessed »

The worst type of handshake is the one between (typically) two men where a guy is trying to assert himself and clamp down on your hand with a firm handshake but they clamp too early. Instead of gripping your hand when the cruxes of your thumbs and forefingers meet, he clamps down on your fingers and mashes them painfully. I cannot help but feel that people know when they are doing this, but they silently persist in it anyway because they get to assert their dominant role as if to say, "Ha, I have the upper hand," with this smugly underhanded gesture. It also seems like people that do this tend to be overbearing and obnoxious in general. Has anyone else noticed this?

Re: Hug vs. Handshake

#166

Post by Unwitnessed »

The worst type of handshake is the one between (typically) two men where a guy is trying to assert himself and clamp down on your hand with a firm handshake but they clamp too early. Instead of gripping your hand when the cruxes of your thumbs and forefingers meet, he clamps down on your fingers and mashes them painfully. I cannot help but feel that people know when they are doing this, but they silently persist in it anyway because they get to assert their dominant role as if to say, "Ha, I have the upper hand," with this smugly underhanded gesture. It also seems like people that do this tend to be overbearing and obnoxious in general. Has anyone else noticed this?
Post reply on HN