I’ve never enjoyed greetings or good-byes with strangers or casual associates, and sometimes even loved ones. It felt like a moment where there was supposed to be fireworks, or at least enough warmth for a spark of connection, and that felt like a lot of pressure. Also, the unpredictable permissible physical contact was always tricky to field. Would there be kissing involved, just a head nod, handshaking, or a hug? How should I anticipate this and show warmth while also expressing my own authenticity and social boundaries? I get overwhelmed with so much input and output all at once. How would it be read? And now that we are living in this COVID world, all of that is even more confusing.
But, you know what I do love? Back scratches. It’s hard to have a bad back scratch. In the range of expertise, there’s not a lot of variance across the board. It’s a pretty small range. The worst back scratchers are not that far from the best. Move back and forth and apply some pressure in a spot that one cannot reach on their own very easily. It’s a given. It is one of those rare things that even if done not as excellently as possible still does the job, and even sends tingles down my spine.
However, the variance in human greetings has a huge range, and the greeting could really set the tone for the whole interaction. There was a lot of possibility for what could be coming at me, response was important, and it all happened so quickly. So much room for misunderstanding and mishaps. Sometimes there were cheek kisses. Someone new coming at my face right away! Information overload. Trying to look comfortable. Sometimes it was one kiss, sometimes two with one landing on each cheek. And sometimes there were THREE. Right on back over to that first cheek again. Sometimes handshakes were like vice grips, other times sweaty, sometimes limp. Sometimes there was a startlingly enthusiastic hug from someone I hardly knew but they acted like we went on an epic adventure together. Sometimes only a lackluster pat on the back from someone I actually did have some pretty significant life experiences with. Sometimes the approach was baffling, misaligned, forced, or too wet. And, honestly, ANY moisture exchange with a stranger is too much moisture exchanged. Especially now. There were titles and pronouns and unfamiliar pronunciations and guesses about all of what would feel warm and respectful. Trying to share my often invisible identity while also accepting that others probably would not see me was always a negotiation. It was all sort of a gamble in which we tried to initiate and adapt appropriately to our audience while expressing ourselves in the hope for sincere connection. We all lost in that gamble. Too much information, and yet, also not enough.
I don’t miss the forced moments of awkward attempted connection that are now more limited due to COVID. I do miss interacting with new people sometimes and varieties of people, closely. I don’t think we have ever done this well, though. We are all so different in so many visible and invisible ways. And I think now is our big chance to do better at actually starting out as strangers to each other and being honest as well as spacious about that. We can do MUCH better. And we really need a less disease-spreadable way to say hello when we meet in person, which we can hopefully do again more safely at some point. This is a big area for improvement, can you see it too? We need better greetings. Better good-byes.
I often have strong amounts of energy and information moving through me, in new situations especially. Sometimes I shake while this movement occurs and I try to simply stay present. Sometimes it looks like I am nervous. Sometimes I do actually get nervous because I look nervous and then I feel nervous that I look nervous. I am very highly sensitive. My brain works in a way that could be labeled as neurodivergent, it processes in a way that does not align with what is expected in a capitalist culture. I feel things intensely and I often do not know what I am feeling until I have time and space to process it. I have learned to get more spontaneous with processing this information I receive in the form of a flood, rather than simply shutting it down due to overwhelm and self-consciousness. That took YEARS OF PRACTICE to learn. So, I don’t mean to brag, but I am kinda professional at listening to sensations and emotions and responding to them. I am a literal professional, a therapist, and also a secret professional. You have little idea how much I am consciously processing and responding to. It would be really great to have a legitimate and socially sanctioned way to initiate a new interaction that is actually about the time and space to be with this new person and oneself with this new person. I would really like to be in charge of this now instead of adapting to what’s already here and doing our best to look some way that we do not feel inside. And I have a really solid idea that I would like you to hear me out on.
Back scratches are the new agreed upon greeting. You may have seen that coming.
Just sit with that for a minute.
Think about how good back scratches feel. Imagine your last back scratch. It’s been too long, hasn’t it? You’d like one right now, wouldn’t you? Hard to reach back there, isn’t it? It would only take a minute of someone’s time to really provide a very satisfying experience for you right now. It is unreal to me every time I get a back scratch how good it feels. It is literally maybe the easiest thing, moving a slightly stiff object or fingernails back and forth in one spot. I’ll even use a stick. Yet, WHOA. Chills. SO. GOOOOOD.
What is the one part of the body that is most difficult for many of us to reach? That’s right, right in between the shoulder blades. But who could very easily reach it? Someone else. Anyone else. New person or familiar person or person you associate with because of work or circumstance.
It is way more COVID appropriate than literally depositing saliva on someone’s cheek near their nose and mouth. No hands touch each other and then touch everything else, including your face because no matter how many times we are told to not touch our faces WE WILL TOUCH OUR OWN FACES ALMOST CONSTANTLY. Your face is away from the person scratching. No breathing on each other. It can be done while wearing masks. It happens over clothes, over barriers. It can even happen while wearing gloves. Zero skin contact. No fluids. No small talk. No startling assertions about human rights.
And here is where it gets really good. It requires feedback. In my opinion, that is the greater social issue at hand. We are terrible at feedback and attunement. COVID is highlighting this issue nicely. Even in the wikiHow (YES, there is actually a wikiHow on scratching one’s back. Can you see how my point is being illustrated over and over and over??), asking a friend is last on the list. Last resort. Let’s make it the first. We are all suffering from trying to do everything on our own because we refuse feedback about individual needs and experiences different than our own. We all have backs, they all need scratching. Just because it feels good.
No one knows how you want to be scratched. You may not even know how you want to be scratched. The moment of back scratching is the moment when you cue into your back and realize the pressure is too hard, too soft, or maybe literally making you bleed. Maybe you like bleeding. Maybe you need a really long time on one spot. Yep, a little more to the left. A little more. Just a tiny little itty bit more. YES. Yes. There. There. There. Maybe you have a need or disability that requires accommodation or a tool or other way of making this contact. It requires listening and responding, to self and other, that does not even have to be done verbally. And knowing you will be both in the receptive role and the offering role means that you will be personally responsible for listening and responding well to all the feedback, yours and theirs.
This way of greeting requires not knowing. And it also requires assertiveness. It requires getting to know someone in a real way, for just a minute. And it also means you actually satisfy something for someone that they truly cannot do as easily as you can. It means letting someone do something for you that feels good that you cannot do for yourself in the same way, and just receiving it. How much more satisfied might we all be if we were having back scratches all day long? How many of us have been incredibly jealous of, and even said that we wish we were, a dog or a cat? How much better might we all be at consent? And communicating our needs and wants? And listening and responding? What else might this small moment translate to???
You know that person who always interrupts you while you’re talking? Or the person who does not seem to be listening to what you're saying at all? Think about greeting them and focusing on your back, the part of you that you cannot see. Such vulnerability. So much shadow. Think about the power in the social acceptability of this greeting, should it take off (I am truly counting on you to help this take off). Think about this person taking only a moment to ask you where you want to be scratched and confirming that the pressure and speed is good for you. Think about you telling them that no, it is not working for you. And allowing them to listen to your verbal and physical feedback while you listen to your internal feedback, until you get there. This is experiential learning that decreases defensiveness. And now you’re switching roles and they are revealing to you in their way what feels good to them. You have to listen. You have to guess. You have to be wrong and keep listening. They have to slow down and notice. Maybe they rush through it. Maybe they guess. Maybe you can tell. Maybe you reflect this. Maybe they get better over time because this is happening all day long and we are all in these bodies until we are not. And the cost is so so so low. Worst case scenario is that you got a bad back scratch, or that one spot is still itching. And then you find someone else who does better. And because of this we all get better at being together, together.
Think about the person who dismisses all your concerns, the person who never responds, the person who frantically messages until you respond, the person who never gets what you’re saying, the person who always thinks they get what you’re saying but really misses the mark, the messy person, the person who always puts your things somewhere mysterious, the person who belongs to that group that you really are very suspicious of and question their values…all of these people and you would have to slow down and listen to each others’ bodies! Can you imagine?
There will be those moments when someone offers a back scratch and your body says no. No scratching at all from this person. Maybe no scratching at all from any person. Those are big moments. That’s feedback too. And you will have to hear that and work with that every time you see that person, or any person. There is no way to coast into the pretense that things are ok. You will both know something is up whenever you greet each other. Maybe there will be back scratching resolution appointments and mediators. Maybe this sounds awkward. But maybe it is better than what we have going on now. And personally, I think not hearing or acknowledging each other and ourselves even when we are screaming and hurting and dying is a lot more awkward.
I simply ask you to think about it. This is my proposal for a campaign and a movement. I am not sold on the name. There are a lot of good phrasing opportunities for the word ‘scratch.’ So many puns. So many meanings. Feel free to share your submissions. Signs can be made. Steps can be outlined. Videos produced. I can already see the same kind of production and direction used in airline videos informing us how to utilize flotation devices and exit a plane that has crashed into water obviously due to some failure. Conveyed with such ease and calm as if we are learning how to blow up a balloon and go down a slide rather than save our already-in-peril lives.
We are still here. We can scratch back, and we can back scratch. Sometimes we do not know what is out of sight even when it is inside our own bodies. And sometimes the best person to work that out with is the next person you meet.
Here are the steps:
Be in a body.
Come into contact with another body.
Ask if you can approach from behind and scratch their back, and if they would do the same for you.
a) If you get a yes, ask if they have any requests or needs for you to be aware of while scratching or being scratched.
b) If you get a no, ask if there is anything that they would like you to know about this no or anything that would help them get to a yes now or in the future.
c) If you get a not sure or unclear answer, ask if there is anything that would help them clarify to get to a clear yes or no, or let them know they can let you know whenever they do know and move on if the answer remains a no or not a yes or unclear.
Accept the requests, needs, and any feedback about what would help them get to a yes or that maintain a yes for backscratching. Do your best to observe these points of information and check in with them to affirm that you are observing their wishes. Once you feel you might be complete with the scratching, ask if they feel complete too or if there is anything else they need to feel complete for now.
If they’ve agreed to backscratching, switch places and do it all over again in reversed roles.
This should all take 5 minutes or less. Once you’re both complete for now, say thanks and move on with your day.
We can do this. We really can. I am here for it. Are you?
