Everyone understands that dual pronoun use is currently in fashion among certain non-binary persons to express the complexities of their gender identity in different contexts and social settings…right?

I just want to apologize in advance to the gender-fluid, vague-pronoun crowd that I am, always have been and always will be a “he”, as in dude, guy, male-ish, rumblehog rider, baseball mitt owner, etc.

Although I’ve identified as metrosexual for years and have long abhorred certain aspects of macho posturing, I will never be a “he/she/whatever” and I’m definitely not a “they.”

I can’t be a “they” because I’m just, you know, a single person with a single past. Am I missing something? Do I need to shoot myself with a Sig Sauer? Or should I split my head open with a sharp axe?

My name is Jeff, I live in West Hollywood, and I only use “he/him” pronouns. I know that’s kind of an uncool or anti-social thing these days, but I’m obstinate, I guess.

Speaker #1: “Hey, where’d they go?” Speaker #2: “Who?” Speaker #1: “They were just here a few minutes ago.” Speaker #2: “Jeff was just here. He’s down at Kinkos picking up an order.” Speaker #1: “They’re at Kinkos?” Speaker #2: “No, he is…Jeff is.” Speaker #1: “I’m just trying to use cautious terminology. You don’t have to be disrespectful about it.” Speaker #2: “Who’s being disrespectful? I’m just saying plain and straight like Walter Brennan on horseback might say in a John Ford western, ‘He’s down at Kinkos’…period.”

The daughter of an occasional friend (i.e., one who sometimes ignores me but not always) recently insisted upon dual pronouns when they spoke about a female friend she was planning to meet in another city. “And so we had to navigate these awkward conversations,” the friend reports. “’How are they?’ ‘Oh, they’re fine.’ ‘I’m going to be seeing them later.’ If I were to point out how utterly bizarre this is [my daughter] would get angry.”

“What it actually satisfies is a need to be something other than Cis,” she interpreted. Cis is bad — cis is asshole males, must to avoid. Plus, she said, “It’s a way of getting attention from peers. Simplistic, yes. A few writers believe it is a kind of contagious hysteria, like anorexia.”

Actual friendo reply: “I still don’t get how an individual person can be a ‘they.’ Doesn’t that, like, break the basic rules of grammar? I mean, I don’t even get what it means.

“I know they mean well and I know this is what people want to hear about and I know it’s meant to be progress, but I just feel exhausted. She/Her/Hers. Does it have to be both Her and Hers? Aren’t they the same thing?”