What to do during irregular hand shake manoeuvre?

I’ve learned in business etiquette that shaking the right is most common. However, you shake whichever someone presents first.

You could have put him in an awkward situation if he was concealing the fact that he had a “nub” or a prosthetic.

If someone gives you their left, do not deny them just because you want the right!

You may shake a proffered left hand with either your right or left hand…

And @davidbetterman poses a good point. Just because he gave you his left wouldn’t have made it inappropriate for you to shake it with your own right.

This is why bowing is the best form of introduction.

I agree completely with @mrrich724. There may have been a perfectly good reason this person offered you his left hand. I think it would have been polite to not put him on the spot and shake what he gave ya.

With some ethnic groups, offering the left hand is an insult. It is the one that they use to “complete” bowel movements. (You didn’t want to know why – did you?)

I’da bitch slapped the freak.

No no, really… I don’t shake hands any longer. A short casual salute will suffice acknowledgment without touching one another. I just don’t trust people to keep themselves clean any more. I will not shake your hand. But you receive acknowledgment nonetheless.

I’ve learned to offer the casual salute before the hands ever move towards shaking. If someone beats me to it, I’ll salute and say “good to see you”. But we will not shake stranger… sorry.

I suppose that next time, I will shake the presented left with my right.

When this happens, I just grasp the left hand with my right and give it a friendly little shake. Courtesy means not embarrassing the other.

@Jeruba Courtesy means not embarrassing the other.
Seems a good rule of Thumb [harhar] and unless you are in a country where the left hand is often known to be an insult, why assume that it is?

I like @Likeradar ‘s suggestion to shake what he gave ya.

I must make a personal note to do this more often.

Seriously some people have had a stroke or injury. You never know.

I’ve shaken hands left handed for years due to nerve damage in my right arm. A hearty handshake fires up the pain so I always offer my left. I’ve had no one disregard or question my gesture.

@YoH has clearly never faced the likes of me! lol

@Ltryptophan Are you saying you have a tender handshake? I would still be offering my left as it has become my habit to protect. I struggled with changing my handshake several years ago, and then discovered I don’t do regret very well at all. Better to offer the left than to deal with pain that’s difficult to control.

@YoH I was underlining my faux pas, after your mention that noone has ever disregarded or questioned your gesture. Clearly had you met me I would have insisted on inflicting nerve damage on that right arm.

@Ltryptophan Live and learn. You’ll know for next time. :)

As a lefty, I spent most of my childhood offering my left hand for handshakes and such. I also have a tendency, when walking down a hall, to stay to the left rather than the right.

If someone extended their left hand to be shaken, I would gladly offer mine in return.
I’d assume that the person was offering their left hand because their right was in pain, broken, etc., I wouldn’t look at it and think “Oh he’s a lefty too!” right off the bat.

On a separate note, since we’re discussing leftys now, today I found out one reason why these folks right in a columnar fashion, for lack of better expression, the ink will smear if not…This is what one lefty explained to me today while writing a check. I told her I wonder why some right handed folks don’t right that way. She then gave me that explanation. I offerred that maybe the right handed folks would do that if we wrote from right to left. I dunno…

@Ltryptophan Oh we have to do all sorts of tricks to live in the right-hander’s world.
If you’re a right-hander, go to a store and pick up a left-handed can opener and try using it. (You wouldn’t believe how relieved I was when campbells started using tops that you pull off, rather than having to use can openers)
When there are Flash games on the computer that require one hand to be on the arrow keys, and one hand to be on letter keys (or space bar), I have to cross my arms and have my left hand on the arrow keys, because my right hand just can’t handle it.
but I feel like this is a discussion for a different question.
It’s no surprise that left-handers statistically live shorter lives [citation needed].

i’ll chip in for a left handed scholarship program…hell, the least a righty can do…

@Sarcasm I have to cross my arms and have my left hand on the arrow keys, because my right hand just can’t handle it.

When I was fourteen I broke my shoulder and right arm rather badly in a gymnastics accident (I was showing off to impress a girl) and spent four months in a half cast. By the time the cast came off and I started physiotherapy[y, I could write, brush my teeth, shoot, catch a ball, tie knots (get a thrill from the girl who I was showing off to) all with my left hand. It doesn’t really take much to become ambidextrous in necessary areas. I often wonder why more people don’t adapt.

You should not have insisted, you never know where that hand may have been and he may have tried to spare you the “pain”!

@DarkScribe As you say some ethnic groups offering the left hand is an insult.
I worked in a university where a ‘certain person from another culture’ would not shake my hand with his right hand.
I found this extremely offensive, but didn’t understand why.
I was later told by another person from the same culture that I (as a female) were of a lesser standing than males, and as such they would not shake my hand with their right hand.

The Boy Scout handshake is performed with the left hand, as it is the hand closest to the heart.
I have learned some three varieties of the palm-slapping, fist-bumping sort of handshake, and I am never sure when to use them, who knows how to use them, and what (if anything) they mean. So I will preempt with the standard righty handshake.