Elbow Cupping is So Gross. Just Stop It, Will You?

TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington has been writing lately about the “disgusting” practice of hand-shaking, even noting that one “brave” company, OpenCandy, tweeted about a board meeting where, in reaction to his recent editorials, no one shook hands but employed fist-bumps instead.

Tweeted Bessemer Ventures partner David Cowan: “Arrington makes sense: Hand Shaking Is So Medieval. Let’s End It.”

Brave, brownnosing, whatever. Look, I will happily shake your hand. I will look you straight in the eye. I will smile as we talk and listen to most of what you say. But if you cup my elbow for any reason, say, to lead me to another conversation, or in response to a very funny joke I’ve just made, or maybe because we’re in a crowded place and you need to get past me, it’s game over. Long after I’ve had a chance to wash what I was wearing, or else to scrub your germs off my bare skin (I sometimes wear short-sleeved shirts), I will think of nothing other than your hand on my elbow and what you might have left behind. I will remember that single point of contact, those germs, and I will think to myself: what a barbarian.

Hand-shaking as disgusting habit? Not as far as I’m concerned. Now doing away with elbow cupping — that’s a revolution I can really get behind.