Your Problems Solved | 6 December 2003

Dear Mary…

Q. I have always deplored the practice of having to shake hands with strangers. After a burly oaf at a smart luncheon party shook my hand with unseemly force, I was barely able to hold my knife. The pain and fear that he had crushed the bones made me acutely aware of the barbarousness of the practice of handshaking in general. (I recall that the late Duke of Windsor had his arm in a sling for three months after visiting India.) Since this unfortunate episode I have, understandably, been shy of hearty handshakers. My position is complicated by the fact that I live in South Africa where any gesture that looks remotely unfriendly is immediately interpreted as racist, and the African people make a particular point of shaking hands with the triple handshake. Each student in a class I give insists on doing so at every session. I have tried every dodge, like having both hands full as I enter the lecture-room.