At first I thought I was reading an Onion headline: ‘Phone texting reveals sensitive new “metrotextual”.’ But, alas, this comes from Reuters, so it can’t be a joke. The article says that men have become quite comfortable texting other men with “x’s” (which is a shorthand for ‘kiss’) as a sign-off. According to the article and a T-Mobile research study, “nearly a quarter of men (22 percent) regularly include a kiss on texts to their male mates.” I call BS, or not. Who knows, it may be true. But then it goes on to claim that 1 in 10 men over the age of 55 also do the same. For reals? Seems fishy to me. A clinical psychologist, Ron Bracey, was quoted in the article as saying, “the advent of mobile phones and social media means more communication is done non-verbally, and through this it seems men can more easily share their feelings with others — especially their male friends.”

So, let’s presume 25% of you guys are actually signing off with a bromantic “x” in SMS’s to you male pals. Is it because you’ve always wanted to share your dude love, but have only just now found a safe way to do it? Personally, I feel like the “x” is a fairly innocuous sign-off symbol and doesn’t have much deep meaning at all. Hell, I’m not sure the symbol has ever signified anything more than a bit of whimsical flirtation at best. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against the symbol – in fact I appreciate it. To me, the “x’s” and the “o’s” have always been a friendly coda, the norm in the Internet age when tapping out “sincerely”, “love”, or “with kindest regards” on our keyboards or thumb-pads has gotten too laborious or unnecessary. And that’s not meant contemptuously, it just is what it is – a norm.

What gets me, though, is the odd progression of this metrosexual/metrotextual meme. Poor actual homosexuals are now left with a comical linguistic association with men who put too much gel in their hair, wear argyle and send cellular love around the world with “x’s”. That seems a bit unfair, trivial and trite.  Maybe we should instead call these men enthusiastic-dressers and x-texters respectively, and drop these plays on words respectfully.

Or am I just being a grumpy old man?

xoxo
Elliott