NOT so long ago, it was sufficient to just shake someone’s hand. But today, when image matters more than ever, how you meet someone can, in certain quarters of this city, make or break you.

Currently, the simple act of two men meeting up for an after-work beer – and later parting to get home before I’m A Celebrity... starts – has been unnecessarily complicated by a series of enormously intricate hand, arm and shoulder gestures, designed to show just how much ‘respect’ you have for each other.

Now it could be that I have a hand-eye co-ordination problem (I’ll never set a badminton court alight for instance) but shamefully, I just can’t get the hang of it.

I’ve tried, God knows, to master that whole ‘hangin’ with my homies’ look, but in the end have resigned myself to adopting a street name instead. And as ‘Barra Cuda’ gets me a Big Mac in McDonald’s and respect in Park Town, need I really say more?

Except, watching X-Factor recently, I’ve noticed that all its international guest stars perform this new form of greeting with the show’s presenter Dermot O’Leary.

And always the social climber, I’ve realised that my inability to...

A. Grab another person’s hand and clench it.

B. Pull said person towards me.

C. Rub my right shoulder together with theirs.

D. Embrace while rubbing the back of their neck.

E. And finally part with a ‘knowing’ glance of warmth and sincerity.

...may be holding me back on Oxford’s incredibly ‘chichi’ party circuit. After all, this is a city where social mores are highly valued.

For instance, years ago, when I dated a woman studying at the university, I remember how gobsmacked I was when an embossed card was slid, surreptitiously, under her door. Was it an invitation to a Royal wedding or Ascot? No, just a neighbour inviting her round for afternoon tea.

Still, that was in the late 1980s and etiquette, like fashion, has moved on. Only this week I spotted several students in Christ Church Meadow performing a ‘booty’ dance for their friends (afternoon tea has clearly been replaced by ‘gettin’ down in da house’...).

Clearly I don’t want to appear over-sensitive to these ever-changing tides of social interaction, but truth is, I feel I’ve become a dinosaur.

A relic who at parties still says: “Nice to meet you”.

But who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? You see, I’ve started taking lessons.

Admittedly, only in the last few days, but having practiced with a real ‘bad ass’ from Boars Hill (his mum and dad do own a nice chain of card shops though), I think I may be turning a corner.

The difference is slight, almost unnoticable just now, but give me until Christmas and I think, if nothing else, I may have the whole ‘attitude’ thing off pat.

And all I’ll have to do then is wait for the invites from Woodstock to pour in...