There's a nice How-D'yu-Do!

So picture this - you're to meet a long -lost friend after a long-long time. Waiting at the smartly decorated coffee shop, you're sipping on iced tea and looking at the door every few minutes. Soon, he walks in and glances around unsurely, looking for you and reaching for his phone because he assumes you're late (which you normally are). In your excitement at having made it there before him, (hah!) you wave madly at him and stroll across to greet him. And so it begins.

How exactly do you say 'Hi'?

This is one dilemma that I have been confronted with numerous times since my adolescence. You see, back in the nineties, it was unheard of for young boys and girls to greet each other in public (in ower belowwed India) with anything other than a handshake or an oral exchange of pleasantries. But what with globalization and westernization (and other such things that are to be frowned upon, naturally. Ushoo) knocking at our doors, boys and girls began to (yes) hug. Which was still alright, as long as they had just one standard way of doing it, but that wasn't to be. Things had to, of course, get more complicated.. And so began the Ultimate Debate of Which Hug to Use for Whom and When, but Without Hurting the Feelings of All Concerned.

I have largely categorized the different Ways of the Hi as follows:

1. The simplest of all - An oral 'Hi!/Hey!', and so on.
2. The handshake.
3. Hug Type 1 - You approach each other from the side, much as shy lovers on a park bench. You then slide your arm around the other's waist, but not too familiarly. This is for acquaintances and the disliked.
4. Hug Type 2 - You approach each other up front. Shake hands, and pull each other for a closer hug. Follow with a few familiar and loud pats on the back and draw away. Quickly, lest you give people the wrong impression. This one is usually from one Boy for the Boys That One Hangs Out With.
5. Hug Type 3 - A modification of Hug Type 2, except without the back patting. Just a bumping of shoulders attached to the hands clasped will do the job here.
6. Hug Type 4 - A full-frontal hug, just stopping short of a bear hug. For long-lost friends, bros and soul-sistahs, this is warm and meant ONLY for people you trust. Seriously. You can even throw in a quiet peck on the neck, if accessible and appropriate.
7. Hug Type 5 (and my favourite) - the Bear Hug! *applause* Can make you feel completely loved and simultaneously cause intense pain through the powdering of every bone in your torso, if administered by a large but well-meaning boy.
8. And last and definitely the least, Air Kissing. Brrrr.

So I ask you - which one to use when? It's not even so much about the social situation anymore, as much as it is most often about the levels of alcohol (or hormones) in one's blood. And the most embarrassing situations arise when one is prepared to administer one kind of hug but is confronted with another type being administered by the other person. The fumbling and awkward mumbles that follow certainly make for interesting studies in Extremely Mortifying Moments. I've had times when I've approached with Hug Type 1 in mind, but been given Hug Type 4 by a fresh-after-the-gym 6-footer, with the result that my nose went smack into his armpit. I won't even go into the aftermath, it's now a well-documented case in medical history. And has, needless to say, scarred me. Then there was the time when I held out my hand with the intention to shake the hand of the formidable old patriarch of a Punjabi family. My bad. His hand moved to my head to bless me, and mine moved smoothly in the direction of his feet to receive them with all due respect. Best save of my life.

But my favourite memories have been of when, time after time, my evil girlfriends and I pretend to be meeting after eons in a club/preppie place and greet each other with high-pitched shrieking and a flurry of air kisses. The P3Ps around in their shinies and stilletos can NEVER tell if we're just exaggerated-but-genuine versions of themselves, or if we're merely mocking them. The suspicious and curious looks that are thrown our way as our bemused spectators swallow every giggle of our performance, are priceless. And say what you want, we shall never tire of them.

Pooh to the problems of conversation skills and the difficulties of what to say to people. Let's figure out how to get it started, shall we?