A few years ago, one of my friends asked me why I sent such ‘mean texts’. I was pretty confused, as I had always branded my texts as ‘hilarious’ or ‘oozing with both wit and charm’, so was surprised to hear that people had been assuming I was 'mad at them' because a little letter was missing at the end of it. Ya, I am referring to the insane ‘x’ culture that we live in today.
It’s absolutely mental that you have to end every message you write with a few little xs, when really if you like that person, they don’t need to be told by a stupid addition of a letter. And if you don’t like them, then why do you have to pretend that you do in a text? Plus, when you’re made to write birthday cards and stuff to people when you’re like 10, an x means a kiss, and seriously I do not want people getting the wrong idea. Why can’t we just give a friendly o for a hug? That’s nice and safe, I’d prefer to go with that. However, I tried it once and the person just thought I was doing a surprised face. It was like, ‘I’m here o’ and then, ‘why is that shocking?’. It led to much confusion, as you can well imagine.
I only recently found out that the number of xs you put down actually matters, which is a little embarrassing because until then I had just been hitting the button and then sending whatever happened (i'm a crazy kinda gal though). In order to check that xs do actually mean something, I went to the good people at Yahoo Answers, who always answer questions both truthfully and with as much thought as they are humanly capable of:
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| Yes... I have blocked out my name so that you can't see all the other (hilarious) answers to qus that i've written... |
Knowing this made me understand previous situations:
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| Hahaha the person is so mysterious. WHO CAN IT BE? |
Of course, having found this out I, like any other confused person in the world, got confused about how many xs would be appropriate to give to people. This is because if you are going to deliberately give someone xs, you need to know how many they need. I mean, if I’m texting the woman whose kids I babysit, does she deserve an x? When you always send xs then a text message looks a bit sad without one. It looks like it IS deliberate and although the message is perfectly friendly you are venting out your anger by not putting an x. Additionally, I don’t want to give out my xs too freely, I mean, people need to work for xs. This is starting to sound weird so I’m going to stop, but you get me.
The worst thing about xs though, is that you don’t know what the other person means by them. FOR EXAMPLE, I do not equate how much I like you with how many xs I give you. In fact, most of the time I forget to give xs because I hit send so fast (fast typer problems). But, what if some people are directly showing how much they like you by how many xs they give you? What if they’ve got some creepy little list at the back of their pad of paper (because everyone sometimes needs paper) which says how many xs mean what. WOAH. Talk about subliminal messages. Forget about body language and all that psychological crap, the number of xs people gives you tells all (unless, of course, it doesn’t.)
Because you can’t just think that if someone gives you lots of xs then they like you more. Cor, if you were thinking this, you were thinking simplistically, my friend. What if they give you loads of xs and you think they are like in love with you, when really they are IRONIC xs? OMG. Who knew that xs could be ironic? Well, now you do. They can mock, too. And then if you reply with precisely 11 xs too, then jeez you should be embarrassed.
So, I have put together a scale (in order to put off revising for as long as possible) that should be used universally, of what each number of xs should mean:
[none]: this person either wants you to die a slow and painful death (possibly caused by them) or they forgot. It is your call, make the right decision though, because your life depends on it.
x: a sad little x, isn’t it? All lonely, standing there on it’s own. This person feels obliged to give you an x, because they’ve thought about xs, but they didn’t want you to get the wrong idea. This known in the trade as the ‘polite x’.
xx: a nice number to send to an acquaintance. This person is like, ‘hey man you’re alright, have two xs’. This is the optimum number of xs to send if you are confused about how many to send. The motto in this crazy world is always IF IN DOUBT, HAVE TWO (because we are obsessed with materialism).
xxx: this person is clearly a fan - well done getting someone to like you! Congrats, you’ve made a friend! Therefore, this is a friend number of xs.
xxxx: this person is a bit keen.
xxxxx: this person is probably in love with you. GO FOR IT.
xxxxxx: ^^
xxxxxxx: this person probably started doing xs and then forgot to take their finger off the button. It happens to the best of us.
xxxxxxxx: this is a symbolic number, because if you look carefully, you can see that there are 8 xs here. Obviously, this person wanted to tell you that they’re in love with you, but chickened out and so decided to tell you IN CODE. Instead of saying, ‘iloveyou’ they have said, ‘xxxxxxxx’ because they are hoping that your brains are so in tune that you will read the code and respond appropriately. If someone sends you 8 xs then there is NO WAY that they are not in love with you. When you tell them this and they deny that it is not true, they clearly have just not realised yet because it was subconscious.
xxxxxxxxx: this looks sarcastic. It’s like, ‘haha you think we’re such good friends so I’ll give you loads of xs but really I WANT YOU TO DIE.’
xxxxxxxxxx: this person is an idiot/ joker (depends who they are/what you think of them).
So we should all use this. OR we could just stop doing the whole x thing and go back to being normal?
