I am a woman.

There are a lot of us.

We sometimes like to greet fellow human beings with a handshake.

It's our way of saying, "Hello.  It is nice to make your acquaintance."

And while, yes, we are a "weaker vessel" and some of us are very petite and could perhaps be referred to as a "delicate flower" (I, myself, do not fall into this particular category), this does not mean that you are not able to shake our hands.

When we extend our hand to you in a greeting, for the love of humanity shake it!

This does not mean that you should hold our hand as if it were a bomb set to explode followed by a slight, barely perceptible up and down movement.

Nay!

This means you grasp our hand like a car dealer trying to make a sale and you pump it.

Shake it like you are interested in meeting us, not like you are afraid we are going to break.

Shake it like you are confident in your manliness, not like you are afraid of us.

Shake it like you mean it!

We do not want to feel as if we're shaking hands with a rather sick little girl.

We need to know you are a real man in case, while we are in your company, something dreadful would happen that would require our needing male assistance.

Something like...I don't know, the changing of a tire, the killing of a snake, the lifting of something heavy or the defending of ourselves against a knife wielding maniac.

If we meet you and shake your hand and it's all droopy and un-energetic and girly-like we will be forced to conclude that you are not the type of man that can handle manly situations.

So when we encounter a knife wielding maniac (which is a high probability in today's world) we will take it upon ourselves to try to disarm him to protect ourselves and our girly-handed man friend and then we'll be slaughtered in the attack because men have more upper body strength than the delicate flowers that we are and then he'll attack you and you'll be so distraught due to the recent loss of your delicate female friend you'll be off your game and the knife attacker will come in from the side and you weren't expecting a side attack because the manual on how to be a man never discussed that move (and apparently it never discussed how to shake hands with a girl so perhaps someone should update that manual for the sake of posterity) and so he'll slaughter you too.

And we'll both be dead.

And a knife wielding maniac will be on the loose.

And this all could have been avoided if you would have just shaken our hand like a proper gentlemen instead of acting like a little girl.

I hope you see the seriousness of this matter.

Your strong-handed, delicate flower, female friend,

B

You can see the rest of this session here under "Newborns".