I’ve never tipped my hat to another man walking down the street. It’s not that they didn’t deserve the salutation, but I would have looked like a damn dufus had I done it. Or perhaps it’s just not quite with the times (like the word dufus). With my friends, I hug them. Sometimes. Other times we’ll smile at a safe distance. Sometimes we chest bump. Of course I’m speaking of friends I have known for years. What about in less familial situations, someone I’m not so close with? Sometimes I have to suppress an urge to chest bump.
Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time at airports. These days I spend just about as much time as the baggage handlers and the folks with those plastic gloves. I’ve been making some interesting observations about how we greet each other. By “we” I mean men. For me, the last decade or so has been spent in a sea of women: at work, in my family, and in most social settings. Women everywhere. And when there are women around, men tend to be far more comfortable with, well…with being more like women. Open to touch. Open to expressing feelings. But like I said, I have been spending more time in airports lately in a part of the country where there are far fewer women. In fact, it’s mostly men. Men everywhere. And sometimes, only men.
When one group of people are together in the absence of a different group of people things change. A bunch of heterosexual men together, in the absence of women, can look like a locker room or it can resemble camaraderie in the trenches or dugouts. Men alone are different than when there’s even one woman around. We change. We regress, or transgress, where the rules of engagement change instantly. I’m not sure it’s better, and I’m certainly not certain it’s worse. But it is most definitely different.
Before we slip off into complete generalities, I want to reel us back into tipping hats. Salutations. How do we straight men greet each other? Shaking hands and chest bumps, right? Au contraire. I see so many terrible half-hugs between male friends, neither willing or comfortable with going all-in with a full embrace. I see chin nods. I’ve played party to elbow-holding handshakes even. But handshakes aren’t always expected, and sometimes feel overly formal. Chest bumping a 65 year old man with a big beer belly may seem and feel hilarious, but you just can’t be sure that they’ll be able to stomach it. A lot is at stake.
After talking at length to my gay friends, they were confused about all these hetro-male problems – and I can’t help but agree. Where’s the problem? What’s broken-down? Is this global?
No.
I’ve lived in countries where salutation is far more standardized than in Canada. In Thailand you wai to greet someone; a gentle bow with your hands together in front, like in prayer. The Thai social hierarchy dictates that you place your hands higher on your body or head for the more important person you are greeting. For the king, you lie prostrate with your hands above your head to show respect and reverence. There’s a system. In Ecuador if you go to a party, you shake hands with every man in the room. In the south of France you get to kiss women three times in greeting and farewell, handshakes for the men. My male Italian friends would kiss each other on the cheek – so convivial. But here in Canada we’ve lost the standard greeting. And forget about kissing an acquaintance, unless you work in theatre. Our salutations are all over the place and it seems that no one really knows the rules. But that’s Canada for you. So post-modern.
I sometimes get the chin-nod from acquaintances passing-by. There’s the high-five, creepy wink, unwanted squeeze, complicated hand thing where one guy drops his elbow and thumbs are grabbed, and sometimes you do nothing, cold and unwelcoming. The origins of the handshake were to drop your shield in peace, showing that you weren’t going to attempt to kill the other guy. With murder rates dropping in Canada have we reached a place in history where salutation needs to be reinvented?
Men of Canada, what do you do? Where are you on the salutation scale for bodily touch? And for those of you who don’t embrace, why not?