Can we PLEASE all agree on a standard handshake firmness level?

[Mojambo]

I'm sick of not knowing when some mofo is about to try and break my goddamn hand.

And if you're one of these dudes who likes to establish dominance with a vice like grip, can you please just pee on my leg instead? I'm gonna need to use this hand occasionally.

[JVS]

1. I crush you!

[Gidney N Cloyd]

2. What I can't stand are guys who just shake your fingers, like

they're trying to milk your hand or something. If you clamp down too soon and only get fingers just abort for godsakes.

[billyskank]

3. The only thing worse than the vice-grip handshake

is the loose I-don't-want-to-touch-you-any-more-than-I-have-to handshake.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

4. I hate that but I find it just as bad as somebody with a weak handshake.

Unless you have some sort of physical problem, have a firm handshake. Nothing says loser like someone that can't even muster the strength for a firm handshake.

[Mojambo]

5. I have to admit that I'd prefer to abolish the handshake altogether

I've never been on board with the handshake.

But then, I'm not much for the touching.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

11. Wow...even a handshake?

What happens when you encounter the random hugging stranger?

[Mojambo]

12. It can get ugly

But I'm pretty quick and nimble and they usually don't get close enough for a hug.

[ForrestGump]

6. Sorry

I tend to have a pretty firm handshake, anyway, and have very strong hands through so long in kung fu practice, and these days I tend to do the handcrushing kind of shake because it seems so many men -- when I'm decked out as Elvis -- feel the need to assert their dominance over the King (or an approximation thereof), by trying to squish my hand. My pre-emptively squishing theirs is not so much an attempt to say "no so fast, buddy" as it is to avoid that initial twinge (I shake a lot of hands, and being the loser in a lot of handshake contests begins to really hurt after a while, especially when they crush my five rings into my poor, abused fingers) and to make the handshake on my terms and control the nature of the handshake (I don't turn it all the way on, just enough to ensure that they don't get my metacarpals shifting, because once that happens your hand's in trouble).

The other night I shook a woman's hand and momentarily forgot to ratchet it down. :o

Then again, a week ago I met a 'working girl' who shook my hand with one of the firmest grips I've ever felt, male or female.

[Haole Girl]

7. LOL

[Gidney N Cloyd]

8. Bill Brasky had a strong handshake.

He drove a car made of the forearms he'd torn off other men.

[Mojambo]

9. To Bill Brasky!

:toast:

[Gidney N Cloyd]

10. To Bill Brasky!

[Bunny]

13. To Bill Brasky!

<snip>
"Did I ever tell you about the time Brasky went hunting? Brasky decides he's going to hunt down all four of the Banana Splits. He stalks and kills every one of them with a machette. They all begged for their lives...except Fleagle."
<snip>

[Gidney N Cloyd]

15. To Brasky!

[asthmaticeog]

14. Sorry, but that sounds like -- COMMUNISM.

[Shakespeare]

16. I like Eddie Izzard's solution to overly squeezy handshakes:

He thinks it should be socially acceptable to buckle at the knees and scream "OOOOOOWOWWWWW YOU'RE HURTING ME!" so that 1. the guy lets go, and 2. everyone around knows what an asshole he is.

Passing away due to hand-squeezy death. Never pretty.

[SmokingJacket]

17. Why do strangers have to touch each other?

Yuck.

[Ellen Forradalom]

18. Agreed! I sprained my finger doing a back handspring a few months ago

Since then, firm handshakes hurt like hell! Lighten up!

[ScreamingMeemie]

19. I have been getting the limp, not quite, here's my fingers shakes of late.

and it irritates the hell out of me. This foot doctor I went to see yesterday had that kind of shake. I was wanting to ask,"Are you that noncommital with a scalpel as well?" Yick.