Why I sign off texts with “lol” now

And "lmfao", if it's really bad.

While all roads will (hopefully) lead to Laughing Out Loud, things will still need to start slow.

The early stages of our digital interactions will be gentle and unthreatening, like replacing a full stop with a colon (the punctuation, silly) and a closing bracket.

:)

I realise I have emojis at my disposal, but I find they are too specific; I prefer to be more generally friendly than overtly so. The :) is there to add an overarching warmth. Some may say it has an undertone of “like me,” but contradictorily, I don’t care. I like to receive them, so I’ll give them, in both business and pleasure, except when teeing up a date. The smile isn’t that free.

eh

We can stay in this :) space; however, if I’ve made you chuckle 5+ times, this is when things will start to change pace. Gradually, sentences will start to stop halfway through and move into a new line of text (much like the boomer ellipses). Spelling errors will also be ignored, because we’ve finally established that our fingers have more important issues to tend to: hitting l-o-l instead of a full stop.

Not that I add full stops to texts anyway lol

Imagine lol

See? Quite easy when you get the hang of it. Sometimes I don’t even notice I’ve typed it. Just as well, it always makes sense.

This increases the piss take by (at least) 10% to bring the perfect amount of levity. Incredibly versatile too, you can be laughing (mentally or physically) while typing, or on the verge of tears. It’s great like that.

I found lol particularly useful when I was feeling like a sack of shit at the start of the year, a time when spiralling was very accessible. It gave me the extra space to air my grievances and share the latest updates without needing to explain too much else. Self-deprecating, without labouring the point. Certainly more of a band-aid than a fix-all, but it added the smirk and perspective I needed, before returning to being a mute. Or washing my hair.

I save lmfao is for the real emergencies, like spilling pumpkin soup on the carpet three days before you move out (the stressor being getting the deposit back). It’s perfect when chaos ensues and you’d rather turn to your phone than deal with the problem.

What comes after lmfao? I don’t know. I’m hoping that’s as fair as things escalate. I have been toying with adding the nose to the :) though, but after some trials, I think I’ll reserve that just for close friends; it’s far too nuanced and subtle to drop into early interactions.

:-)

You’re clearly my close friend.