Forsaking the High Five

Today marks the five year anniversary of a big day - the day that I forsook high fives. Normally, I don’t celebrate the yearly anniversary for the day that I forsook high fives, but if there is one anniversary to celebrate for the forsaking of high fives, it should definitely be the fifth.


- Impact of a high five -

“FIVER!!!!” Nothing says “lame frat-boy” quite like hearing someone behind you yell “fiver!” and when you turn around they have one hand in the air waiting for you to slap it. This situation just makes me cringe.



The worst situation possible is after you tell a funny joke, everyone within ear shot is laughing, you are feeling good about yourself due to the quality of the joke and the fact that the group has agreed that it was funny, and then someone attempts to give you a high five. This just absolutely kills all the good feelings you were having about yourself for the joke. In fact, you would have been better off not venturing out of your shell to begin with, because you basically just had your self esteem flattened by some inconsiderate jerk who apparently thinks high fives add value of some sort.

High fives are also used a little too much on first dates. And basically any group date where the guys are trying to make the girls feel “special”. This is painfully obvious when you see a young group of kids bowling … when the girl who has never bowled before (easy to tell) finally DOESN’T throw a gutter-ball, and she is awaited by 4 guys with their hands waiting in the air for her to slap. Gag me with a spoon. These guys are just trying to get a little bit of cheap, unwarranted physical contact with anything that has legs. Nothing says “desperate for cheap physical contact” quite like a high five. And… it’s only guys in the group who are high fiving each other, that just screams “homo-erotic” a little bit, doesn’t it?

[side note: normally “gag me with a spoon” would be the topic of the blog. But since I haven’t heard it in use for the past 15 years, I figured it would make a good comment in this blog. “Gag me with a spoon” has remained buried for the past 15 years, but why hasn’t the high five???]


- What’s wrong with the high five ? -

We need to pass some legislation around the use of high fives. And by “legistlation”, I mean, let’s just make them 100% illegal. There is never a good time for a high five. (ok, one exception to every rule I make is that it’s always ok to break the rule if you are making fun of someone else. And if you’re dealing with small children, high fives are also acceptable. Small children have a couple of exceptions to rules that apply to adults – high fives is the first, the other would be use of the word “buddy”. If another adult calls me “buddy” he had better be prepared to have his teeth reworked. Same goes for adult high fivers.)

High fives are a little too 1984, which means we might expect them to finally be gaining in popularity in Japan. The problem is that, in my head, high fives seem to fit in with images of feathered hair, pegged pants and Converse Skidgrips. Maybe another problem is that when I was searching for fitting high five images this morning on the web, it seemed like every website that had a high five picture was one of those “make money now, fast!” websites.

And if it has become the style again to start slapping high fives, then what happened to the pegged pants and the feathered hair (which both happen to be popular in Japan)? If you’re gonna bring back a style, you need to bring it all back. Otherwise, it just seems really out of place. The high five definitely is out of place in our society right now.


- In conclusion –

My brother just walked through the room and asked what the blog topic for today is, and when I indicated High Fives, he thought it would be controversial, at the least. “I love to high five. Although I also use a luffa…” (please refer to previous blog on luffas/loofahs).

I guess I don’t need to say anything more, since he basically summed up everything I wanted to say with that one statement.