Why would I prefer you didn’t high-five me? Well, I really can’t high-five. I totally get the concept of hitting someone else’s hand, but for some reason I look like a buffoon when I try. Twice this past week people have tried to high-five me and I looked like a complete plonker trying to do it back. I think it is the surprise of it when someone just raises their hand and my stomach drops and I think “oh no, they want to high-five me.” In my mind I do it so coolly but in reality it is quite another thing! The biggest issue is you know you can’t just leave their hand hanging in the air so you have to go for it and hope you won’t miss!
The first time I told someone my age and they said “oh my god me to” and then held up their hand! What on earth? High-fiving the fact that I am a 40-something woman, and not only that when the person held up their hand I completely missed it and nearly smacked them in the face! The second time was when someone was telling me I did a good job with something and I couldn’t work out what they were trying to do… I thought they were going to shake my hand, but they were going for the low high-five, so I went to shake their hand back. It made for a very awkward moment between myself and this very young male consultant as you can imagine where my hand was headed.
I don’t get the high-five and I don’t like it. We don’t really high-five in England but here in America, it is almost the national handshake for thinking the same thing, doing a good job, winning a game, doing a shot, and the list goes on and on for warranting a high-five. To be honest, I think I am just embarrassed when I try to do it and can’t quite pull off the simple hand-to-hand smack. That is probably the real story behind me not liking it 🙂
