Frankly, We’re Uncomfortable With The Fist Pound

By Spencer Hall
I have a confession: around ten years ago, the fist pound began to creep its way into mainstream society, and I’ve never really managed to adjust. What’s wrong with the standard handshake? Since when did the handshake become too ... what’s the word I’m looking for here ... effeminate? Fey? Intimate?
Turns out there are conflicting historical records about its origins, and none have anything to do with a fear of looking “gay.” Wikipedia has it beginning as a way to greet others without using unsanitary handshakes, while Youtube has other, less probable but more entertaining answers:

Whatever: the handshake worked for Hemingway, Ronald Reagan, and the Beastmaster, so it’s good enough for me.
However, when you spend the weekend talking to total strangers in Las Vegas sports books, the inability to do a fist pound without displaying total discomfort with the gesture was a disadvantage. On more than one occasion I will confess to committing a nearly unpardonable offense: greeting the incoming fist with an open high five, a gesture as awkward as entering someone’s house and vomiting up your chili lunch on their new sparkling white carpet.
Or at least I thought it was an unpardonable offense: turns out I can beg it off as the “Pound 5,” just one of many variations on America’s most brahsome hand gesture. I wasn’t awkward; no, no. You were just behind on your fist pound variations. Yes, that’s it in a nutshell. ↵