Toronto’s Globe & Mail reporter, Michael Kesterton, writes today about new research on first impressions at University of California, Berkeley. I just LIVE for these studies.              (strange but true…) It seems that we can accurately sense whether a stranger is genetically inclined to be kind or trustworthy. How  mind blowing is that? I suspect that manners and social customs  are a kind of code that reinforces this message. So if you meet someone who seems cool and then he smiles, shakes your hand, and makes eye contact, you confirm your gut reaction. “Yes, he IS cool! I knew it.” The tiny relationship start before the first words even begin; the social ritual cements the gut reaction. Can it work the other way around? Does a gut reaction of “weird! weird! weird!” match up with odd or absent etiquette? Just sitting here waiting for a study….

Trish:

Unlike you these studies scare me, and seem to confirm I am truly twisted.  So many times my first gut impressions are so so wrong.   I meet someone and think dweeb alert, and months later dweeb and I have become good buds. If my initial take on a person is WOW, Cool, usually what they do is coloured by that positive first take, and it may take weeks to destroy that positive first impression, bad etiquette or not.  Is my sensor broken beyond repair?

While I don’t think the nose wiping/handshake moment was really noseworthy, it does make me wonder what the woman who shook his infested hand was thinking. She had to be following his approach with her eyes while waiting for the chance to offer her support, so must have witnessed the nose wiping, yet she still accepted his hand when it was offered.  Is there a right way to respond to such an unpleasant offering?  “Nose sir! Not today?”

I watched an old clip of a spectacularly well known Toronto politician greeting a woman in the crowd. He wiped his finger back and forth under his nose…then shook her hand. Nooooooo! Gross? Yes.  Spreading a worldwide, catastrophic plague? Possibly.   Insight into his character? Hmmm. Does he think his bodily functions are nectar from the gods? It is NOT OK. Not in a politician, not for anyone. Yuk! NEVER!

Trish:

Well the camera person filming that exchange sure had a nose for the news!  Of course the politician’s nose wiping/handshake was definitely rude, gross, and in extremely poor taste, but is this news? Is this really something we need to see? If it is a live taping, they have little choice, but to later re-air this clip, unedited, give me a break! is nose news really good news?