If everyone’s a bro, nobody’s really a bro.
You’re on the way to work, scrolling through Reddit as you go through the motions of the daily commute. Giggling (internally) at the latest nonsense on r/disneyvacation, you suddenly see a hand waving in your face. It’s accompanied by an inexplicably-confident “Hey bro!”.
You look up to see someone who is categorically not a “bro” – he’s not your brother, he’s not your friend – heck, you don’t even know him.
He’s an insurance agent, but that’s not the point. More horrifyingly, he’s one of them.
He’s one of those who calls everyone “bro”.
I’m really not sure how this phenomenon came to be. Personally, the use of the word – both outgoing and incoming – started in secondary school, before seeing a sharp uptick during National Service.
I suppose that makes sense. In both scenarios, we’re trying to fit in and/or make life easier for ourselves. And there aren’t many better ways to do that than to be friends with everyone.
Sadly, it seems to have become a crutch and a bad habit that many fail to drop even after (purportedly) growing up to become young adults and professionals. I may even go so far to say that it’s invasive, placing an expectation of kinship and reciprocation on an unsuspecting victim.
But maybe that’s just me. I place a lot of value on who I call friends and who I don’t. Emotional, sensitive – label me as you please, but I just really give a shit about such things.
(Note that there’s a difference between being friends and just being friendly; you should be the latter as much as you can, but more fussy with the former, in my opinion.)
The closeness that’s suggested by the word adds a layer of expectation on top of your minimum expectations that come from being ripped out of your own little world.
And then it all comes crashing down when you realize it’s just someone trying to make a buck off of you.
Why do you build me up, just to let me down?
Keep it real
Honesty is the best policy in just about everything, I say. That includes sales activities – be upfront about what you can do for me and what you want in return, and I’d respond much better than if you tried to act like my friend.
It’s funny how trying to be friendly can make you look really insincere, but authenticity is what we’re all really craving now, right?
It’s why the term “influencer” immediately garners snickers of derision. We see the vast majority of them as insincere, fake people who are merely pretending to be our friends.
WordPress doesn’t even recognize it as a real word:
The world can be a beautiful place, and a lot of that stems from the friendships and relationships we form with other people. But if you’re not truly sincere about it, even a thousand uses of “bro” will never cut it.