Why do Germans shake hands so often?

Thank you for the inspiration.

We all know, of course, that the habit of shaking hands arises from showing your counterpart your - empty - weapon hand and proving that you are unarmed (just like saluting develeoped from the knights raising their visors to show their faces). But Germans do tend to take this habit to extremes. Even a doctor who has just washed his hands and may be examining you in more or less bacteria-sensitive areas will shake your hand first thing when you enter the room. My German ex-in-laws used to shake my hand in preference and/or in addition to a nice friendly hug.

Why do Germans think they have to prove their unarmed status over and over and over?

Thanks.

Is that the leg that Tartan is selling? He never answered my question as to its compatibility with silly walks.

Those aren't Ministers, they are Freemasons.

Dunno, but it's probably why I've got this cold!

Thats a misunderstanding. Actually we are checking if YOU are carrying any hidden weapons. Everyone knows we have trust issues with foreigners.

Its the LAW!

There they shake hands, when I'm in Portugal it's 2 kisses all the time (difficult one when you enter a room absolutely full of people and go around kissing perfect strangers)...in France it's 3...in the UK I guess it's normally a kiss on one cheek or in more formal type occasions a hanshake...or just stuff the lot and say Hi without a gesture. Customs ey...who knows where they all come from? Perhaps someone just made them up once. Would be interesting to know though how they have come about.

I don't know why they do, but it annoys the f**k out of me. You get introduced to someone at a party/wedding/toilet conference/McDonalds opening in Oberarschkecksehausenheim/Vinzenzmurr, shake someones hand and you just know that you'll never speak to them again. Because soon as the ritual handshake is out of the way, the shades go back up and their allergy to small talk takes over. Don't f**king shake my hand if you're only going to ignore me afterwards. Twat. Don't make me have to touch the hand that will either repulse me with its uncanny resemblance to a dead fish or will attempt to reduce all carpals to powder in your robotic vice that you also use to wipe your bum with, while popping that forced rictus smile.

Waldfests. F**king nightmares. Sit at a table with a bunch of preppy posers in ridiculous trousers, each one of whom will offer you the paw as you join the table. Truly, the gauntlet of gack, each new Twatling hand that social convention forces you to shake is a zombie hand thrust from a gravemound, grasping for a piece of your soul. Wait, zombies are cool. Constant handshaking is not. C**ts.

My theory is that it's an "I am not armed" gesture endemic to a feudal culture. It's also why people here stare ... which I still can't get used to having learned as a child that "it's impolite to stare."

Ever notice how men enter a restaurant in front of their female companions instead of openening the door and ushering them through? The Germans say "the man must be ready to protect in the event of an attack," whereas the Anglo-Saxon attitude is "I'd never take a woman to a place where I'd even worry about anything bad happening in the first place."

We'll take up the fork and knife think on a later thread, I suppose ;-)

I prefer to shake hands rather than do the bussi-bussi thing with people I don't really know.
Hungs and kisses are for people I'm closer to.

No beating around the bush with young Mr. Monkstown.

I agree.

Interesting theory re the 'I am not armed'...not sure re not holding doors open though, sounds like those ladies are going out with the wrong type of man.

for the same reasons dogs sniff eachothers arses.

I never shake hands with anyone in the office. Oh wait, yesterday I did with a co-worker because he is leaving, and I won't see him again. But not usually.

Not the wrong type of man, just German men. I had the experience many years ago of having a German girlfriend rounding on me and biting my head off because I opened doors and pulled out chairs for her. She felt I was treating her as being stupid or feeble and wanted to know why. I explained that, where I come from, all men are raised to treat a woman in such a manner, her response was that German men would never do it and that I should stop.

Is over analysing things a hobby of yours? What a load of old cobblers!

well not the German guys I dated or am friends with. Absolute gentlemen.

I didn't mind an ex of mine (German) opening doors and helping me into my coat, I felt spoilt and knew that he thought I deserved it. But his habit of lighting my cigarettes got on my nerves.

It was the same way when I lived in Prague and I was given the same reason there as well.

Up to 20 now. 2 more people who I don't know and didn't introduce themselves just walked up to my desk and thrust their palms forward. 20 in one morning!

Make sure you wash and lotion them mitts!

Enlarge and print the picture. Hang it up on your wall. Next time a German comes up to you with his hand outstretched, lay yourself down on the floor and point at the picture. Film and post on YouTube.

Hmm. Tempting.

I recommend you start performing the sleazy handshake, where you use your middle fingers to stroke the other person on the palm as you shake.
Within days you have no one coming to say hello (or everyone, depending on your company), situation defused.

Every single doctor I've gone to here shakes hands with the patient leaving his surgery and then shakes hands with the next patient. Must be one of the best ways of passing on sick people's germs.

and yet they don't seem to have as much of a problem with superbugs...?!

They do I am sure but it isn't a media issue like it is in the UK as health care is so diffused.
If a hospital has MRSA in Germany, it is the hospital#s fault, not the government's like it is in the UK.

Mine doesnt - he sits firmly the other side of the desk. Actually the guy looks iller than I mostly (always seems to have a cold when I see him at the Saturday market).
My previous dentist used to shake hands (with a Dracula-style smile) and then go and wash his hands.

I've come across the desk-sitters too. Like an audience with the Pope. The doctor I used to go to here liked to faff around with his fax machine/computer/phone during the 5-minute consultation. You could never be sure if he actually noticed you were there (well, not until he gave you the bill). His method of shaking hands was to just lay his limp hand in yours. Didn't even grasp your hand.

Completely different from my regular GP in the UK. He has a chair for the patient at the side of his desk and pulls his own chair away from his desk, not facing it, but facing the patient. He actually takes his time, listens to what you have to say and doesn't give the impression that he's on a higher plane. Another bonus is that he doesn't shake hands!

I think it also has to do with the UK's wards (the one's I've been to have had 20 beds in 1 big room, all the one's I went to in Germany I had 1, 2 or at max 3 other people in the room with me who all had the same kind of problem. Perhaps that helps too. Dunno

nice little anecdotes but there is little evidence they are true. People were saluting well before heavy armour (helmets with visors) was commonly worn. Another nice theory is that salutes orginate from soldiers (or warriors) shading their eyes from the sun.

... as they leave the pub in the morning.

I did not mean "desk-sitter" in any negative way. Hes pretty good & uses PCs to check on possible interactions between various medications...
Hes als a Chiropraktiker(?) so he treats the occasional painful back, neck or even bad headache by applying pressure etc...

Lovely word

I think it's also the name of a village up north. May be cause for confusion if its use spreads.

"So were are you from?"

"Twatling."

"Arsehole."...

The grossest are OB/Gyns who have you wait stripped from the waist down in one of two cubicles while they examine the previous patient, then call you into the examination room in all your naked glory. I left one doc's office in spite of a severe female complaint because of that procedure. Arrogant bastard. He died soon afterwards, probably from a handshake of death.

I actually like hand-shaking, unless the hand I'm shaking is really limp. Limp hand-shaking is the WORST. Get a grip, will you?

BTW - don't your doctors wear rubber gloves?

It's not illegal to stare!

I can't get used to it either: it's an invasion of privacy. Staring would be interpreted as threatening behaviour in UK society. When I first moved here, I became completely paranoid about it (do I have three heads or what?!). That and the surly service in shops/offices. Makes you feel even more of an enemy alien than you already do as a non-German.

I just realised in my home country (Poland) shaking hands happens even more often than here!I am so much used to it that , when seeing each other for the first time, if someone opens the door for me and does not give me their hand, I do it first! In the company of close friends we usually hug each other, and , as I am pretty short, I prefer to shake someone's hand than feel stupid hugging with a guy two times taller than me

I got my hand kissed in Poland! Delightful elderly university professor.

Yeah, and kissing a woman's hand is still in vogue there. The best example is our president whom you can see on german tv quite often

I remember when I first came to Germany to live back in 1990. The whole handshake thing used to really wind me up, they really do shake hands an awful lot. Over the years I have come to realise that the handshake is a tactile exchange meant to be an efficient way of bridge-building. The British prefer the non-touching equivalent of 'small talk', or by using humour, etc etc, which aims to achieve the same goal without all that physical contact. I imagine there is an internet forum out there somewhere where bewildered Germans ask why do the British indulge in all that small talk and use strange wit to break the ice and wondering why we can't pump flesh like in good ole Germany. It's only a theory but it works for me.

As far as the staring issue is concerned, it is a type of explicit communication - Germans tend not to do between the lines' implicit, either verbally or non-verbally do, which is why they seem to be staring when they are often trying to indicate sincerity, or that they are listening to you & taking you seriously. Again, just a theory but it makes me feel better when I catch them doing it.

As Stephen Fry said, never ask a PR man for the truth, and never shake hands with a gynaecologist.

Like when I'm travelling on the U-Bahn, minding my own business?

Now this quote I really agree with. German women, in my modest experience, often get upset if you try and be just a teeny weeny bit of a gentleman as it comes across as though you are being unemancipated, treating them as though they were stupid etc. It reminds me of the old story, I forget where it comes from:

She: Sir, your should not open the door for me because I am a lady
He: Madam, I would never open the door for you becaus you are a lady. I open the door for you because I am a gentleman.

The coolest thing was when I first took my girlfriend (now my wife) back to the UK for a holiday. Where I come from it is not customary when a group of couples go out for the women to buy rounds. The men do this. You can think what you like of that, my wife took years to get used to it and still finds it 'wrong' now, although she has learnt to accept it, God bless her.

ok, good point. On the other hand, maybe it is because the British are really allergic to eye contact in such situations. If a culture is more 'straightforward' we find it odd. I am trying to put together theories, I am not trying to justify. Let's remember that, in principle at least, there are no 'better' cultures than others.

When I worked in Basel we had lots of French People who would shake your hand every day and say 'Salute'. I don't don't know it meant much but we always started everyday on the right foot and I think it kind of cleared the air a bit. I think it's a top idea and maybe those repressed Brits take note!

We "French" like kissing.

This thread is cracking me up!!! I'm feeling sorry for the guy who had 20 people shake his hand this morning! I'm one of those borderline obsessive compulsive peeps who need to wash their hands every time they touch someone else. I wouldn't get any bloody work done. ha ha ha