When old nemeses lock thumbs and become Bro's.

Posted at 1:43 PM on April 20, 2009 by Jeff Horwich

Ok, what is this stupid handshake called?

Like almost every man, I think, I have been in plenty of situations where a normal handshake somehow turns into this thing. And I smile and act as if I meant to do that and I think it's entirely normal and natural.

But it is not normal. Or natural. Not for most of us.

So when I see President Obama's historically amiable chit-chat with Hugo Chavez (whose recent apparent weight gain I parse in this earlier (and much-excoriated) post) commemorated with the classically inappropriate Thumb-Lock-Bro-Bro handshake, I have to wonder if any of them had the same thought:

"Did I do it this way, or did he? Are people laughing at us? And for God's sake, what does it MEAN?"

(BTW, I couldn't find a distributable version of this AFP photo, even though we subscribe to AFP work. So this version is included here, fairly and legally, for commentary purposes.)

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