Slapping Five

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“I hang out in sports bars a lot. I’m not that into sports. I’m not really
a drinker either. But I love slapping five.”

That is a Demetri Martin joke and polar opposite to how I feel. Sports, sports bars, and slapping five are not ‘my bag…baby.’ However, I am not a drinker so we got that going for us. I just wanted to write about something not so heavy and depressing and I thought my unnatural animosity towards athletic PDA would be a humorous topic.

If you know me, or have seen my frail figure, you will know sports have never been a skill I’ve excelled at. I am too uncoordinated and robotic. I can’t even clap and sing at the same time. I remember when I was in high school I was on the basketball team. I would like to say, ‘I played basketball’ but that would require getting off the bench. My main job was to use my four fouls if the Battlin Billies needed to stall the clock. I was fine with that. The whole dribbling and ball-in-the-basket was difficult for me. Hitting people was a skilled I honed through childhood experiments with my sister…

I remember how foolish and uncomfortable I felt when our team would ‘huddle up’ before we would run onto the court. Luckily my friend Aner was just as embarrassed so we would stand to the side while the rest of the team got riled up. Then there was the unnatural desire that some teammates have to give and receive high fives. I do not know if I have ever instinctively felt the need to high five someone. Sometimes my students instigate the high five and I feel like an awkward hypocrite when I concede to that lone hand in the air.  

But the ‘high five’ is one of many examples of my impaired social skills. This runs through my mind every time I have to make a first impression: