Out with the Social Hug: Bring Back the Warm Handshake!!

I hereby publically and officially protest the Californian custom of greeting hello and goodbye with hugging, kissing, air-kissing, double-cheek kissing by the French and other Frankophiles, and triple-cheek kissing by the Dutch (are they trying to one-up the French....?). I am not doing it anymore. I will use Germaphobia as my excuse, but really it's because I feel forced, and this bothers me. Hugging someone at a meeting or at church just because I don’t want to hurt their feelings, or worse yet, hugging someone because I am scared they will find my offered handshake oddly formal, is giving me nightmares. It stresses me out during a hug, wondering how much mutual pressing of our bosoms is appropriate, worrying whether I smell ok…worst of all, the brief and passionless Social Hug keeps me from looking the person in the eye and smiling warmly while greeting them (Those too-scarce expressions of real intimacy and openness which we're all unconsciously craving).
I therefore publically call for the return of The Warm Handshake as the default greeting. I hope that this article will begin a societal discussion of the topic. I believe if we discuss this honestly as a community, we'll find that we all resent obligatory hugging and want to choose who we hug. It's just that until now, none of us has had the guts to bring it up.
Don't get me wrong; I don't want to be unfriendly. Quite the opposite: I think holding hands and looking smilingly into my friend's eyes IS friendly. It is friendly to the proper degree; no more, and no less. It gives us each a chance to smile into each other's faces: hugging, let's face it, is uncomfortable for both involved, and we don't even glance at each other: we get it over with as quickly as possible, with as little real snuggling as possible, so as not to inadvertently cross the line into sexual harassment.
The Warm Handshake solves these problems and can be executed as follows: if the shake is between one of each gender, the woman should be the one to offer her hand first (I call this "the Offer"). Please check with Emily Post if you don’t believe me: a woman has to offer her hand first, not the man, and this established etiquette has yet to be unseated. The offerer (let's say its myself for purposes of discussion) should be standing far enough away to offer her (or his, if it’s two men) hand with arm extended naturally, so about 3 and a half feet from my navel to yours, and the Offer must be accompanied by a smile, unless wholly unappropriate, say, at a funeral. My smile (or whatever appropriately sympathetic facial expression) should be directed right into your eyes: This is of utmost importance or the warmth goes right the hell out of the greeting, and it'll seem like I want to be done with you as soon as possible without making any mental or emotional human contact. You will find it pleasant smiling into someone's eyes while shaking their hand.
Once someone has made The Offer, The Acceptance must always be in kind. (You are an utter putz if a woman offers her hand for a handshake, and you open your arms for a hug instead. This rude invasion of a woman's physical space makes you awkward at the least, and probably at least a little bit of a pervert). Return the smile on accepting the handshake, keep looking into the Offerer's eyes, except for a brief glance at her hand to gage the distance, to make sure you don't "Fumble". Some embarrassing fumbles that have actually happened to me: stabbing the offerer in the gut with my outstretched fingers because I was too close, grabbing the hand in a clumsy, missing-the-handshake-position way, and therefore having to go on with a limp, effeminately weak finger-shaking motion, and the worst, missing the hand completely and grasping vainly at the air. So be sure to look first. The acceptor should not shake too hard and long, only a couple pumps. If you want to be really warm and convey that you like or respect them a lot, look in their eyes longer and say whatever you want to say; for example, "it was SO great to see you. I hope we meet again soon" while enclosing the handshake with your left hand as well. This is the handshake equivalent of a genuine, affectionate hug, the kind of hug sisters give each other, or two male friends who hug enthusiastically, patting each others’ back. (There ARE appropriate places for hugs, and those are two of them). If you choose not to utilize the two-hand handshake method, then just pump once or twice, pause, and let go, but look and smile at least a second. If their hand was sweaty, please do whatever deep-breathing-meditation-om-om-oohhhmmmm…do whatever you must in order to consciously resist the urge to wipe your hand on your pants!! Believe me, they know their hand was sweaty and they are already sufficiently mortified without you making your revulsion obvious. Try to remember with compassion that they are intimidated probably out of respect for you, and that's why they are sweating.
The above is a noble, civil, heartfelt manner of greeting acquaintances, colleagues and friends, and I miss it. The warm handshake reigned supreme among greetings for a couple hundred years, and has only in my lifetime been supplanted by the overly-intimate hug, and occasionally and even more disgusting, the brief kiss on the lips from an older gentleman trying to appear fatherly (the nerve!!). I frankly wish to reserve such kisses for the man in my life, and no one else except beloved children, before they are 4 years of age. After age 4 kids generally don’t let us kiss their mouths, and I guess it’s because they, too, want their space and privacy from being hugged and kissed all the time! Even a child gets this concept.
The warm handshake as a general rule of greeting takes away anxiety over what greeting will be appropriate. You can warmly shake the hand of a company president and his wife on the first day you meet them without worrying whether you are being overly friendly. You can forget about seeming cold, too: The Warm Handshake properly executed assures the other with touch, sound, and words that your intention is friendly and loving, but is still respectful of their space.
OK, I know there are many men out there who feel emotionally deprived because they grew up with their own Father shaking their hand, and I agree that's taking it a little far. I agree that we should hug our children. They need our love, and they need physical expressions of it. But let’s love our loved ones more and our acquaintances a little less. A girl who cut my hair recently hugged me goodbye, and we had met for the first time only an hour before! Her hugging me and accepting my tip at the same time seemed vaguely mercenary. I don’t want to be forced to greet everyone I meet with phony kisses. It gives me a thrill to shake the hand of a man I'd like to kiss, when I am not yet at that level of intimacy with him. I lose that thrill and anticipation when faced with the discomfort of hugging before I am ready. If a man can’t even muster the cojones look me in the eye and smile in my face while holding my hand in the handshake of equals, he’s got NO business trying to hold me under the pretense of “Social Hug”.
A societal revolution is in order. France threw off their shackles and Lady Godiva threw off everything, so Californians can throw off this insane culture of hugging and kissing. The Social Hug may not be robbing babies of their daily bread, or causing families to lose their farms and livelihood, but to me it’s a daily grind, it’s icky, and we have a better, friendlier, more genuine alternative: Long Live the Warm Handshake!!