Hi,

Then I quickly put my hands into my sleeves and pull back about two feet awkwardly hoping they don’t want to shake hands. When they ask for the fist bump, I then say eh… then when they ask for the post-Covid elbow bump I say something about being afraid of gluten and then mumble quietly. If they are still insistent on some kind of physical gesture to solidify the interaction I’ll just say “air” and make some kind of gesture towards them that satisfies persons need for whatever the handshake or high five is supposed to do? 🤷🏻‍♀️

After this is over I’ll sincerely try to talk to the person about stuff that actually matters while in the back of my mind sincerely hoping the person has enough going on in their interior to not be offended and stewing over why this person is so weird because I didn’t want to acknowledge a stranger by touching their gluten hands?

It’s because of this that I don’t prefer formal or official greetings with strangers. I actually prefer a silent acknowledgment where the other person has really solid intuitive non-verbal communication skills with little to no attachments to traditional American greetings like shaking hands and needing to know the name of the person they are physically around. This usually doesn’t happen, but it seems more people get it, and it is always really encouraging when someone does, and has the right detachments themselves to get that I’m not being mean just because I don’t like shaking hands or really direct and literal formal American greetings.

Standard American greetings really have a sharp and invasive dog-like thing, like it’s a go right for the money in a very literal very John Wayne sizing-up diplomacy, I don’t like this, and I don’t like to interact with people this way, I like cats.

Hi