The Lowdown On The High Five

I'll never forget scoring my first basket in a varsity high school basketball game in front of the home crowd. I was a sophomore on an awful team and a senior named Jeff DeWerth, bless his heart, was so excited for me that when we retreated back to the defensive end, and the other team was bringing the ball back up pretty slowly, DeWerth thought we had time to give each other a high ten.

So we're getting settled into our 2-3 zone defense, where DeWerth and I were sure to get burned around the top of the key, when he said, "Yo, Wise, congrats dude," and jumped as high as he could, kicking his heels up toward his ass, and stretching both arms up toward the leaky ceiling of our broke-ass gym. Jeff was kind of a neighborhood friend when we were kids, and I guess we grew apart when we got into high school. But he was still an incredibly nice guy who came from a great family. So I obliged, and returned the airborn high ten.

This was around the time when Wham was popularizing those bold-lettered CHOOSE LIFE T-shirts, but I still don't think the high-ten's gayness quotient could have been surpassed.

And still to this day, almost exactly 20 years later, I'm still fairly averse to the more-casual but still embarrassing high five. Here and there, a socially awkward co-worker will offer it up to celebrate beating the other stations on yet another non-story (I work in news). Or perhaps a beer buddy out at a bar wants to acknowledge the big game on the big screen or the fact that he'd do the girl who just walked by but will never talk to. "Dude, did you see those tits?" He'll ask.

Regardless of the reason, however, you should never, ever high-five your friend. If your friend is cool, he won't return your overture and he definitely won't initiate it. And if he's not cool, then neither of you will get the hot girl with the tits who just walked by, so what possibly could there be to high-five about anyway?

Do You, Uh, High-Five?