Dude Text Decoded

by Alan Hanson

We dudes can be a confusing, emotionally constipated, nearly-illiterate group of horndogs with smartphones. And since it’s 2014 and most people are paralyzed by the idea of speaking into a phone receiver, we must fumble our path to fornication via cryptic texts which barely constitute as flirting, let alone communication, most of the time.

But hey! I’m a dumb dude with thumbs and a libido! So let me pull back the Old Spice-scented curtain and let you peek inside the mind of the modern bro’s texting intentions:

hey = I am scared, unfathomably scared.

sup? = Please do not discover my insane insecurities, I do not feel cool. Ever.

what are you up to tonight? = I can’t even begin to explain the intense, deep loneliness brewing within me and one more night alone, eating cheeseburgers in my underwear, watching The Wire (have you seen The Wire?) is such a daunting dive into the abyss that I will undoubtedly break.

are you into comedy? i know a good improv show tonight = I miss my mother.

lol = What are you wearing? Will you send me a pic? Why not?

haha = You amuse me. You make me ungodly nervous but you amuse me. Also, I am masturbating.

hehe = I am a little boy, lost in the wilderness of arrested development.

*dick pic* = I am wholly unprepared to become a father nor provide an emotionally stable platform for us to bond upon.

do you like music? = I am grasping for connectivity in the pitch black of human despair.

wanna watch a movie? = Want to come over and let me mansplain a basic film school staple for twenty minutes before pressing play and then ungracefully start gripping at your supple thighs and putting my hands in your pants before the second act? Please?

my roommate’s not home 😉 = There is a monster under my bed.

any plans tonight? my friends are doing this thing… = You are an immaculate specimen of femininity, intelligence, and grace, from which I cower and shrink, completely ill-equipped to handle you on my own, which requires the support of my band of flunkies, flunkies with dead eyes who will unnecessarily judge and test you throughout the evening.

you up? = The cold grip of isolation has wrapped itself ‘round my skinny throat, dragging me, breathlessly, into the ice of non-existence, and the only temporary distraction from this ever-present feeling is a sloppy 3 AM tear-soaked copulation with the added bonus of waking in a foreign room and briefly forgetting that I am waking as myself once more.

wanna go to a dive bar? = The absence of my father affects my life in deep, irreversible ways.

meet me in the bathroom 😉 = And cradle me like a newborn as I crumble from an anxiety attack.

k = You can do no wrong. You are a goddess, and I, your slave.

i thought of you earlier today = A passing American Apparel bus ad got my blood pumping earlier today because I am an animal who arouses at the slightest insinuation of sex and now that I’m thinking about it I was wondering if I could plant the seed of a hangout earlier in the day to later quell these intense urges I can not seem to control, which, honestly, are tearing me and our society apart.

did you have a good time last night? = Please do not abandon me like all the others.

is everything ok with your grandpa? = Touch my penis.

*bread emoji* = I love you.