In a tense exchange on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival this week, a photographer grabbed the actor Denzel Washington’s arm, apparently seeking another photo.
Mr. Washington, perturbed, yanked his arm back, and then repeatedly warned the photographer to stop — a brief squabble between seeming strangers that made headlines, and raised the question: Is it ever OK to touch someone you don’t know?
The New York Times reached out to a handful of etiquette experts and therapists who specialize in boundary setting to ask about the rules around making physical contact with a stranger.
‘Keep your hands to yourself.’
Etiquette, when it comes to spontaneous touching, is nuanced — social rules vary from place to place and culture to culture. Still, the manners experts we spoke with were unanimous: “The hard and fast rule about touching strangers is that you shouldn’t,” said William Hanson, an etiquette coach in Britain and the author of “Just Good Manners.”
We ran some scenarios by him. What if you are trying to flag down a server in a restaurant? No, he said. Placing a hand on someone as you are trying to move through a crowd? Nope, he answered. Weave!
Others allowed for exceptions. If, say, someone drops a wallet without noticing and doesn’t hear your calls, “you could use touch briefly,” said Juliane T. Shore, a marriage and family therapist in Austin, Texas, and the author of “Setting Boundaries That Stick.” But don’t grab or clasp the person, she said.
“Keep your hands to yourself,” echoed Elaine Swann, an author and etiquette expert in Carlsbad, Calif. “Do not touch people without their permission unless you are trying to save them from something.”
When it comes to greetings, better safe than sorry.
Norms around greetings are a bit more complicated, the experts said, but in general you can’t go wrong with a handshake — a classic for a reason.
Stodgy? Maybe. But the gesture can still convey plenty of warmth, said Diane Gottsman, founder of the Protocol School of Texas. “It’s your smile, it’s your eyes, it’s your tone of voice — that’s conveying the message,” she said. Extending your hand also gives people options, like a brief clasp or a fist bump.
“Some people call themselves huggers,” said Krystal Mazzola Wood, a marriage and family therapist in Phoenix and the author of “Setting Boundaries.” “If you are a hugger, wonderful! And you ask. You say, ‘I love giving hugs, are you OK with that?’”
Try your best to tune into cultural differences. For instance, in some places in the world, a cheek kiss is customary, Mr. Hanson noted. Other cultural norms can be trickier to parse. Mr. Hanson, a Brit, noted (diplomatically!) that while the United States and Britain seem to have similar social codes, the British tend to “cherish personal space,” while Americans can be a bit more, ahem, “relaxed” and “tactile.”
Small gestures can have big impact.
If your inclination is to write off brief moments of physical contact as no big deal, consider that you never know if the person you’re touching has dealt with physical trauma, Ms. Mazzola Wood cautioned. And Ms. Shore noted that dynamics related to race and gender could also come into play.
“For many centuries, people have been thought of as property and could be touched or hurt without consequence,” she said, adding that “being grabbed by a stranger might mean something specific and rooted in violence and oppression to a Black man from America or to a woman.”
Some people just aren’t touchy-feely — and that’s their prerogative.
Still unconvinced that any of this matters all that much? Try a visualization exercise, Ms. Mazzola Wood suggested. Imagine you’re in a park, sitting with your eyes closed and enjoying the warmth of a sunny day. Suddenly, you feel someone touching you on the arm. You open your eyes, and see a stranger. In that moment, many of us will feel a “primal” and “visceral” jolt of unease and discomfort, she said. Consider that whenever you touch strangers — even if it feels entirely harmless on your end — you may be putting them in a similar situation, she cautioned.
If a stranger gets in your space, be direct, the experts urged. If there is room to do so, you might back up and say something like, “Space, please,” Ms. Shore suggested. If you are holding a drink, you might use it to create a barrier, Mr. Hanson said, or if you are sitting down, you might lean back in your chair. Nonverbal cues are powerful, echoed Ms. Swann — though she admitted she was sometimes floored by people’s seeming obliviousness.
Footage of Mr. Washington’s red carpet encounter showed the photographer not “just touch him, but kind of pull on him,” she said. “That’s crazy to me!”
Catherine Pearson is a Times reporter who writes about families and relationships.
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