You walk into a room with seven people and shake hands with each person once. How many handshakes do you make? This little riddle catches people who answer a different question from the one actually asked.
Read the Question Carefully
The room already contains seven people. You enter the room and greet each of those seven people with one handshake. Every time you shake one person’s hand, that is one handshake you personally make.
There’s no need to count handshakes among the seven people already in the room, because the question doesn’t say that they shake hands with one another.
The Answer
You make 7 handshakes. One handshake per person multiplied by seven people gives seven.
Why Some People Answer 28
If eight people, including you, each shook hands with every other person exactly once, the group would make 28 unique handshakes. That’s a different, more complicated question.
In this riddle, only your own greetings are mentioned. The wording is the clue that matters most.
Did You Catch It?
It’s easy to overthink a question when the word “handshake” reminds you of a familiar math puzzle. But this time, the simplest interpretation gives the correct result. What was your first answer?
