37 Grooming-talk

THE RULES OF INTRODUCTION

Grooming-talk starts with greeting-talk. Weather-speak is needed in this context partly because greetings and

introductions are such an awkward business for the English. The problem has become particularly acute since the

decline of ‘How do you do?’ as the standard, all-purpose greeting. The ‘How do you do?’ greeting – where the

correct response is not to answer the question, but to repeat it back, ‘How do you do?’, like an echo or a welltrained

parrot13 – is still in use in upper-class and upper-middle circles, but the rest are left floundering, never

knowing quite what to say. Instead of sneering at the old-fashioned stuffiness of the ‘How do you do?’ ritual, we

would do better to mount a campaign for its revival: it would solve so many problems.

Awkwardness Rules

As it is, our introductions and greetings tend to be uncomfortable, clumsy and inelegant. Among established

friends, there is less awkwardness, although we are often still not quite sure what to do with our hands, or

whether to hug or kiss. The French custom of a kiss on each cheek has become popular among the chattering

classes and some other middle- and upper-middle-class groups, but is regarded as silly and pretentious by many

other sections of society, particularly when it takes the form of the ‘air-kiss’. Women who use this variant (and it

is only women; men do not air-kiss, unless they are very camp gays, and even then it is done ‘ironically’) are

disparagingly referred to as ‘Mwah-Mwahs’. Even in the social circles where cheek-kissing is acceptable, one can

still never be entirely sure whether one kiss or two is required, resulting in much awkward hesitation and bumping

as the parties try to second-guess each other.

Handshakes are now the norm in business introductions – or rather, they are the norm when people in

business are introduced to each other for the first time.

At subsequent meetings, particularly as business contacts get to know each other better, a handshake

greeting often starts to seem too formal, but cheek-kisses would be too informal (or too pretentious, depending

on the social circle), and in any case not allowed between males, so we revert to the usual embarrassed

confusion, with no-one being quite sure what to do. Hands are half-extended and then withdrawn or turned into

a sort of vague wave; there may be awkward, hesitant moves towards a cheek-kiss or some other form of

physical contact such as an arm-touch – as no contact at all feels a bit unfriendly – but these are also often

aborted half-way. This is excruciatingly English: over-formality is embarrassing, but so is an inappropriate degree

of informality

The No-name Rule

In purely social situations, the difficulties are even more acute. There is no universal prescription of handshakes

on initial introduction – indeed, they may be regarded as too ‘businesslike’ – and the normal business practice of

giving one’s name at this point is also regarded as inappropriate. You do not go up to someone at a party (or in

any other social setting where conversation with strangers is permitted, such as a pub bar counter) and say

‘Hello, I’m John Smith,’ or even ‘Hello, I’m John.’ In fact, the only correct way to introduce yourself in such

settings is not to introduce yourself at all, but to find some other way of initiating a conversation – such as a

remark about the weather.

The ‘brash American’ approach: ‘Hi, I’m Bill from Iowa,’ particularly if accompanied by an outstretched hand

and beaming smile, makes the English wince and cringe. The American tourists and visitors I spoke to during my

research had been both baffled and hurt by this reaction. ‘I just don’t get it,’ said one woman. ‘You say your

name and they sort of wrinkle their noses, like you’ve told them something a bit too personal and embarrassing.’

‘That’s right,’ her husband added. ‘And then they give you this tight little smile and say “Hello” – kind of pointedly

not giving their name, to let you know you’ve made this big social booboo. What the hell is so private about a

person’s name, for God’s sake? I ended up explaining, as kindly as I could, that the English do not want to know your name, or tell you theirs,

until a much greater degree of intimacy has been established – like maybe when you marry their daughter. Rather

than giving your name, I suggested, you should strike up a conversation by making a vaguely interrogative

comment about the weather (or the party or pub or wherever you happen to be). This must not be done too

loudly, and the tone should be light and informal, not earnest or intense. The object is to ‘drift’ casually into

conversation, as though by accident. Even if the other person seems happy enough to chat, it is still customary

to curb any urges to introduce yourself.

40 The ‘Pleased to Meet You’ Problem

In a small social gathering such as a dinner party, the host may solve the name problem by introducing guests to

each other by name, but these are still awkward moments, as the decline of ‘How do you do?’ means that no-one

is quite sure what to say to each other when introduced in this manner. ‘How are you?’, despite having much the

same meaning, and being equally recognised as a non-question (the correct response is ‘Very well, thank you’ or

‘Fine, thanks’ whatever your state of health or mind), will not do in initial introductions, as custom dictates that

it may only be used as a greeting between people who already know each other. Even though it does not require

an honest answer, ‘How are you?’ is far too personal and intimate a question for first-time introductions.

The most common solution, nowadays, is ‘Pleased to meet you’ (or ‘Nice to meet you’ or something similar).

But in some social circles – mainly upper-middle class and above, although some at the higher end of middlemiddle

are affected – the problem with this common response is that it is just that: ‘common’, meaning a lowerclass

thing to say. The people who hold this view may not put it quite like this – they are more likely to say that

‘Pleased to meet you’ is ‘incorrect’, and you will indeed still find etiquette books that confirm this. The explanation

offered by some etiquette books is that one should not say ‘Pleased to meet you’ as it is an obvious lie: one

cannot possibly be sure at that point whether one is pleased to meet the person or not. Given the usual

irrationalities, dishonesties and hypocrisies of English etiquette, this seems unnecessarily and quite

uncharacteristically scrupulous.

Whatever its origins or dubious logic, the prejudice against ‘Pleased to meet you’ is still quite widespread,

often among people who do not know why it is that they feel uneasy about using the phrase. They just have a

vague sense that there is something not quite right about it. But even among those with no class prejudice

about ‘Pleased to meet you’, who believe it is the correct and polite thing to say, this greeting is rarely delivered

with ringing confidence: it is usually mumbled rather awkwardly, and as quickly as possible – ‘Plstmtye’. This

awkwardness may, perversely, occur precisely because people believe they are saying the ‘correct’ thing.

Formality is embarrassing. But then, informality is embarrassing. Everything is embarrassing.