The Impact of Handshakes at Church

I walk into church, I am nine years old and the first service has just ended. The church is warmly lit, not only by the yellow lighting but also by the people consuming coffee, homemade doughnuts, and bubbling conversations. As I walk further into the hall lined with maroon carpet, I am interrupted by a short old woman wearing shoes made of blue crocodile skin. She squints a bit like you see in movies sometimes when older people can’t tell who they’re talking to. “How are you today, dear?” she asks. I have probably seen her before, but cannot remember her so I just say: “Good, how are you?”. She replies with “I’m wonderful dear, thanks for asking”, a ubiquitous phrase amongst the women here. She walks away and I continue walking through the main hall. The off-white walls, dark carpet, and yellow lighting create a homely atmosphere, something you would feel surrounded by Christmas decorations and hot chocolate, it always felt like this.

One older gentleman I often talk to is waiting by one of the doors separating the chapel from the hall. My brother and I walk up to him and he shakes my brother’s hand. “You should work on that handshake young man, let me show you a real handshake,” says the gentleman as he proceeds to show my seven-year-old brother the firmest handshake he probably had ever seen. My brother looked at me and we both laughed. It was my turn for a handshake and since we had just been given a wonderful demonstration on how to give a proper handshake, I thought mine was pretty good. “That isn’t a proper handshake, young lady.” The gentleman says in a silly tone. I look up at him confused. “Let me show you how a lady shakes a person’s hand”. He shows me a proper handshake, for a lady, and then implies that we do it again, properly this time. I reluctantly shake his hand and then go about doing whatever it is that nine-year-old me did, without forgetting about what had just happened.

My mistake was simple, I shook the hand of an old-fashioned person in a modern way. I learned a lot from it though. Not only did I learn how to properly give a handshake to certain people, but I also learned how to ignore useless critiques from others. People are always offering advice and comments on ways they think you could be better, sometimes because of your gender and sometimes not. I used to always give in to these unnecessary comments and did things like change my hair, the way I spoke, or the way I shook someone’s hand. It took a while, but I finally learned that instead of listening to every piece of silly advice given to me, I needed to think for myself instead.

“Handshake man – women” by flazingo_photos is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.