ADVICE TO MY SON 24: THE MANLY HANDSHAKE

My father passed down to me a bit of advice that countless fathers have passed down to their sons over the course of human history: when you meet someone for the first time, stand tall, look him in the eyes, and give him a firm, confident handshake. As advice goes, that may seem simple and even trite; in actuality, it contains a great deal of wisdom and insight into how to be a man.

Certainly you want to avoid walking with one of those arrogant swaggers that signals to other people that you are loftier then they and contemptuous of their opinions and their lives. But please do not let your commendable desire to avoid pride push you to the opposite extreme. Pay careful attention, my son, to your male peers, and you will notice that far too many of them walk around with hunched shoulders and perpetually downcast eyes. Such a gait does not convey humility but a lack of self-confidence and even of self-worth.

Worse yet, it often conveys a kind of contempt that exceeds that of the haughty swaggerer: not the contempt that claims aristocratic superiority over everyone else but a contempt for one’s own calling to embody the masculine virtue of courage. To refuse to strive toward that virtue is not a sign of humility but of sloth (at best) and pride (at worst). What too often lurks behind the body language of the disaffected teen slouch is a thumbing of the nose at God or parents or clergy or teachers or society. “Don’t tell me,” the posture says, “that I have to live up to your standards of courage and integrity. I won’t play your ‘game,’ and I certainly won’t be a role model for others. Just leave me alone!”

It should come as no surprise that the slouched body is generally accompanied by an avoidance of eye contact. Don’t be one of those young men who never looks you in the eyes. Have the courage and self-esteem not only to look but to be looked at. Don’t protect yourself from the searching gaze of a fellow man, but meet it with a willingness to be observed and examined. Even so, in the spiritual life, we should echo David’s prayer: “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts” (Psalm 139:23).

And then there is the all-important handshake. The firm and manly grip conveys a wealth of information that transcends words: that you respect the man whose hand you are shaking; that you have done him the honor of giving him your full attention; that you stand on equal terms of dignity and worth with him even as you acknowledge (if that is the case) that he is your superior; that you know who you are and take pride in your sense of your own masculinity; that you take delight in your (and his) physical strength.

In sharp contrast, if you give the man one of those effeminate, dead-fish handshakes you betray, simultaneously, that you lack assurance in your self and that you do not consider him of sufficient importance to invest the time and energy it takes to grasp his hand with force and purpose. That may not be your intent, but that’s the message you will convey.

Handshakes, like pictures, are worth a thousand words.