E-mail
Print
Put ’em up!
A tribute to high-fives
By Darin Kwilinski
A hug from a 40-year-old man would be creepy, but a high-five from his unsanitary hands? Go for it!
You can see it coming a mile away, the event already in motion, stimulating your brain as you repeat the same gesture. It comes closer and closer, gaining momentum, and at this point it’s unstoppable.
The high-five has commenced.
Can you think back to your first time? Your first high-five, that is. Well, don’t worry about it, because neither can most people. However, watching today’s youth you could probably put together a decent recollection of how it went.
It could have been at your first Little League game when your coach gave you a high-five after scoring a run. A hug from a 40-year-old man would be creepy, but a high-five from his unsanitary hands? Go for it!
Or maybe it was from your first best friend at recess in sixth grade. You just finished making fun of a girl for having cooties, and she ran away crying to her friends. Slap some skin for that one, bro! Little did you know that little girl would grow up to rule high school. But you got a high-five out of it, so kudos to you!
High-fives are one of the oddest things in this postmodern culture. Somehow, like most things these days, it was combined with something else to make it more interesting.
The handshake was the logical choice, and now you have something totally different. No longer is it a “slap and be done with it” kind of thing. Now it’s a sort of slap-clasp that can be combined with a slide to a thumb-wrestling position, to the front-to-back hand slap, pound up and down, and bang with an elbow at the end. If you had trouble reading that sentence, you should try the handshake.
But wait, weren’t we talking about high-fives? Well, yes and no. As previously stated, the high-five has evolved. High-fives are now given during games of beer pong and football. Slap-clasps are given as hellos and goodbyes.
Do females initiate high-fives at any other event besides beer pong? Their hellos and goodbyes seem to consist mostly of hugs and “normal” handshakes. If it’s someone they don’t know, they do an awkward wave thing where their arm shoots straight up and down, never exceeding the shoulder but staying higher than the chest.
But us guys? Please, we know how to roll with it. If we see a good friend in the distance walking down Maryland Avenue, you better believe a passing high-five has already been conjured. To the untrained eye it may look like a simple “What’s up?” but to the seasoned veterans, it’s a sign of respect and friendship.
The worst thing in the world is to leave someone hanging. Not only does that person look like a total dork, but you now have the benefit of hearing about how lame your friend looked when he went for the double high-five.
The ultimate machismo act out there, the double high-five is not to be messed with. Send it high and send it low, but never, ever, fake a friend out with the too-slow maneuver. That’s just rude.
> Comments