My grandpa taught me that you can gauge a person’s worth by their handshake when you first meet them. This I have fully believed in for all throughout my life. When I shake your hand, I expect the full package. I want a good, strong handle and complete eye contact. When you say “nice to meet you”, I want you to mean it. I want your complete and genuine attention.  My greed & pride demands it.

Now I have come to notice shitty variations of the handshake that makes me question whether you’re someone worth knowing or not. Social & wealth status do not have any leeway for exceptions here since if these two factors prevents you from speaking to me as a normal human being, you are not worth my fucking time.

1. Where the person looks away as they shake hands with me or glance at me for a brief second. Fucker, look at me when you shake my hand. Do you have better things to do? If so, don’t shake my hand. Shoo.

2. Where the person grips my hand in a bone-gripping fashion. Typically, men do these sort of things and I see it as a sign that they want to engage in some sort of a pointless masculinity contest. I get it, you want to show me how manly you are but you just come off as a enormous pile of douche.

3. Where the person offers not their hand but their fingers. Typically, men do these sort of things and I see this as a sign that I am beneath their superior worth to shake their full hand. There are times where I just want to take their whole hand like Pac-Man and shake it with ferocity.

4. Then there are those people who don’t even offer their hands. I can’t really say these folks offer shitty handshakes (or in this case, a lack of one) because it could either mean that they really feel they are too good for me or that they are sick/not allowed to touch the opposite gender/a casting director.

So far these are the kinds I have noticed. The first three bugs the bejeezus out of me and there have been times when I have called them out for giving me such a shitty handshake. From polite yet quippy ones like “oh, do you have more important things to do?” to downright nasty ones like “I just met you but you’re a shitty person already. Goodbye.” More often than not, I don’t do this because it is customary in society to bite down one’s pride and smile. I hate biting down my pride. I want my pride to roar like a fucking lion on gladiator speed.