"I don't do the high-five thing"

If you try and high five me and you are neither a child or a client of mine, I will stare you down and say (in a nice and polite way) "I don't do the high-five thing".

People generally laugh at me and say I am insane. Just last week a new work colleague said that I need to talk to someone about this and "unpack it". He then pushed me and insisted that I tell him why I don't high five, to which I responded "I don't like it, It is so American, It is childish and fake... not that I am saying that you are fake, cause your not." My colleague thought I was a nutter and almost fell off his chair laughing. Well he did ask...

Only a few days after this event, a volunteer I was supervising, tried to high-five me, I did my whole anti high five thing.... and he counteracted and said that if I didn't high-five him, he would stop volunteering for the organisation.... I was in a pickle. I weighed it up... the team, my values, the team, selling my self out, the team, whoring my self, the team.... I'm sure you follow... in the end I took one for the team and high fived him. I felt like a dirty tramp of a traitor afterwards and had to take a shower. But we all know that it was to no avail because soap cannot wash away guilt and sin.

Don't get me wrong about it being 'American'. I am not anti- U.S.A. After going there and meeting some lovely Americans and having a really positive experience, I see them as being the same as us and just like us, having crap people in power and ordinary citizens in the limelight who do not represent the views of the majority. So maybe instead I should say, it's unappealing stereotyped American behaviour from trash/pop culture, which is over-represented and inaccurate of the behaviour of the majority of Americans or something similarly politically correct, watered down and almost unintelligible. In fact, I may as well have not said anything in the first instance.

Speaking of Americans, yes again with those crazy Americans (I have heard others 'pesky', but I am not one to get involved in international scandals or slagging and I love those crazy Americans, except of course when they are being pesky).. anyway, they even have a national high five day!!!  Apparently it is the third Thursday in April.

The website Mashable posted a '10 types of palm smacks for National High Five day. Included in this list are; the selfie, the air high five, the Van der smack and high five/fist bump combo! A few days after reading this list of the differing types of high-five, someone at work tried to fist pump me!!  Thank god I knew it is a type of high-five, so knew to refuse! 'Be prepared' is my moto!, well... a moto I stole from some children's club. Speaking of being prepared, a little known but important  fact is that on the eighth day (yes, after the seventh day of rest) the lord spoke and said "go forth and act in an age appropriate manner!' It is also unsurprisingly the eleveth commandment, but butter fingers Moses dropped the third stone tablet, so that knowledge was never widely shared. If only at the time he didn't try and do it all himself and asked for some help. A little humility never killed anyone!

If all of this is not enough to sway you to act, dare I say- age appropriately and stop it already with the high-five shenanigans, then hopefully these clips will.. Just remember, 'there but for the grace of god go I'...and if you have no idea what that means, yes I'm talking to you, the high-fivers and potential high-fivers out there- this could be you!