The Forefinger distains the Pinkie; the Pinkie doesn't care.

Fingers are very personal. Go ahead, look down at your hands. Marvelous, aren't they? Now straighten them so you can admire your fingernails. Okay, so maybe you don't like your fingers or your fingernails. Bad form, that; stop it!

You should find a way to like them. I love my fingers and fingernails. I love how muscular my fingers are. I love the arthritic lumps on the distal joints of my pinkies, I think they give me character. When creating the custom of extending one's pinkie while holding a demitasse of some expensive liquid, they had to be thinking of me and the the awesome impression I give at such moments.

The antipathy between the forefinger and the pinkie is simple to explain: When a guy is fighting for his life, he can use his forefinger to try to poke out/gouge his opponent's eye. Even if you've never had to do this, your forefinger knows this is one of the reasons for its existence. And naturally it takes pride in this fact. The middle finger and the ring finger are there to support the forefinger and so are hangers-on. Sort of like Draco Malfoy's young henchmen.

But the pinkie isn't a fighter, and this becomes the source of the antipathy.

Okay, I haven't mentioned the thumb... Shakespeare referred to human thumbs in Hamlet: "...and by opposing end them..." Thumbs are complicated and deserving of their own category.

So now to the punch line: It's been proven conclusively in numerous studies that each of us is like one of the five human digits. (Although it has not been ruled out that some people are like the big toe, and some, possibly more common than we'd like to admit, are like a hemorrhoid. But that's for another post.) Which finger are you?