How many people will I touch in my lifetime? I've never been asked that before...
I'm kind of weird in that I don't feel comfortable touching people when interacting with them. I hug family and close friends. I have a very large family so I'm gonna say that 'hugs' like that, I've touched about 50 people. I went to a few house parties in college. Probably about 25 total. I'm gonna estimate that in each one I bumped into 40 different people. That's 1000 bumped into at parties, disregarding overlap of the same people at different parties. 1050 total. I've had about 15 sex partners, and I'll probably have about 15 more before I settle down. So that's 30 people I've touched while being intimate with them. 1080 total. Shaking hands? Jesus it's a lot. I shake people hands either in a professional environment or when I meet someone new. I'm just entering the workforce now, and I imagine this part of my life is where I'll be shaking the most hands. Let's say I shake all my coworkers hands at some point during our shared tenure of working together. There's 40 people I'm in contact with regularly, and I meet new people at work everyday, either clients or employees in other divisions. This company has 800 employees. So let's just say over the course of my entire career I shake hands with every single one of them. 800 handshakes. I don't directly work with clients but I probably ending up meeting about 25 percent of them anyway. God I have no idea. Let's say I meet 100 clients. Another 100 handshakes. 900 at work. 1980 total. I also shake hands when I meet someone new, such as a friend of a friend. I usually go out twice a week. On average, I'd say I meet one new person each outing that I would shake hands with. 2 a week. About 100 a year then. I'll be doing this for the next 40 years, so that's 4000 acquaintences I've shaken hands with. 5980 total. After retirement, probably won't be meeting or touching too many new people. I plan on being a hermit haha. Let's say I'm retired for 20 years before I die. The people I'll be most in contact with will be doctors and people who come to work at my home (plumber, pest control, etc.). I didn't count these workers before because their number would be very insignificant when compared to people I touch during my adolescent and adult years, before my senior years. Let's just guesstimate it's 100 people in my 20 years of retirement. So 6080 total. Final estimated answer, 6000 people. A bit more than I expected, but upon further thought, seems about right I guess.