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I am a white male, and I had this happen to me recently, where I met a woman in a business setting who politely told me, "I don't shake hands for religious reasons". I had never heard this before, but it did not faze me in the least. She was polite in every other way that she treated me. No Problem!

RS quoted a fascinating Gemara above, however there are a lot of ways it's interpreted. Don't get started on trying to psychologically diagnose "sort of kind of pikuach nefesh", unless you're a trained professional or it's clear this person is a danger to themselves or others (at which point you need to call in the professionals). Let's try and break down ...

The talmud in Sanhedrin 75a brings a case of a man who had his eyes on a certain woman. He became "madly in love" with her. This increased more on more until the man literally became sick with love of this woman. His heart was broken and his health started to faulter until he was in mortal danger. The sages came and asked the doctors to investigate. ...