Why do we shake hands?
The Real Answer
Nobody knows exactly where the handshake originated. The popular idea that people extended an empty hand to show they weren't carrying a weapon is plausible, but historians cannot point to one moment when that custom definitively became the handshake.
What we do know is that people have been shown clasping hands in art and records going back to the ancient world. Over centuries, variations of the gesture became associated with greetings, agreements, trust, equality, and respect. The modern everyday handshake is therefore less the invention of one person or era than the result of a very old gesture gradually becoming a social convention.
Nobody knows exactly how the handshake became the greeting, but we’ve somehow turned it into a three-second personality test. Too weak and you seem nervous. Too hard and you’re trying to crush a walnut. Too long and now both of you are wondering who’s supposed to let go first. Then you just keep talking like you didn’t spend the first three seconds of the relationship silently judging each other’s hands.
The Dunce Dynamics Institute Examines Why People Ask This
A handshake feels completely normal until you notice that two strangers have agreed to grab each other's hands before talking. That sudden awareness of the ritual makes its uncertain history much more interesting.