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Handshakes and Hugs
Human contact in a post-quarantine world
In 1982, when I was a junior in high school, one of my friends announced he’d learned in health class that hugs were good for you, so he was going to hug his friends every day. I loved to see him walking down the hall toward me, knowing I was about to be hugged. Until this simple ritual became part of my everyday, I’d had no idea how much I needed it.
Two years later, when I was a freshman in journalism school, one of my first female professors lectured my class on the need to get out of our comfort zones, to talk to strangers wherever we went, to shake hands when we introduced ourselves. Women especially needed to instigate handshakes, she said.
Fast forward to 2020, when life in so many respects has been tipped upside down and shaken until all the extraneous comforts and rules we’ve taken for granted for so long have started to drop away. Across Facebook and Twitter, women especially seem to be promoting the need to never again return to a norm in which people hug you for no reason and shaking hands is considered a polite gesture. The relief of never again being expected to participate in such rituals seems palpable among many.
For some of us, though, such gestures would be sorely missed if they were to completely disappear. Among family and friends, I love to…
