What ever happened to the lost art of the handshake? It’s not something that’s seen a lot anymore outside of the business world. Unless you’re receiving an oversized multi-million dollar novelty check or graciously accepting a new job as a coffee shop cashier, there is no place in today’s world for the versatile handshake.

Right now, it’s all about the fist pounds and knuckle touches. Is there a problem with touching another person’s palms? Is the action of extending your hand to touch more than just the top of your friend’s knuckles socially unacceptable? The handshake means that you’re comfortable with stepping outside your comfort zone and touching a person, even if only on their hand.

The handshake is more traditional, but it really means getting intimate with another person’s palm. You don’t know where that hand has been; that handshake is a sign of trust. Try it once while you’re heading to class. It feels weird after being accustomed to acknowledging your crew with the arm-wrestling-hand-lock-to-snap-to-knuckle-touch-to-explode. Sure, that’s quite a feat of dexterity and memorization, but it doesn’t mean quite the same thing as throwing that hand out there and not knowing what you’re getting back in return.

In days of yore, refusing to shake someone’s extended hand made quite the statement. Also, you can really tell something about a person’s handshake, compared to the ambiguous fist pound. A workingman’s firm handshake meant he was confident. A weak handshake meant something was fishy. There’s no readable body language from a weak fist pound.

With the death of the commonplace handshake, we have to rely on other body language to tell if someone is about to ship your job to India. Now job interviewers will just have to rely on an applicant’s actual qualifications instead of their handshake. As it is, the handshake is heading in the direction of the high five and the thumbs up, out of cultural normalcy and only to be found in 90’s sitcoms and professional wrestling.