The other day someone called me “bro.”
Not ironically. Not sarcastically. Just a simple, friendly, “Thanks, bro.”
I smiled, replied in kind, and went on with my day. Then, about thirty seconds later, my brain finally caught up with the conversation and thought, Wait a minute… did someone just call me “bro?”
I’ve decided this is one of the stranger milestones of getting older.
I know exactly what the word means. It’s not really “brother.” It’s a handshake in verbal form. It’s a way of saying, “You’re good. We’re good.” It’s warm, casual, and strangely inclusive. Complete strangers can become “bro” within seven seconds of meeting each other, and nobody seems to question how that happened.
I actually like it.
What makes me laugh is that every time someone calls me “bro,” a tiny part of me wonders if I’ve been accidentally adopted by a younger generation that’s just trying to make the old guy feel included.
I realize that’s ridiculous. Nobody is looking at a fifty-eight-year-old man thinking, “Let’s make Grandpa feel welcome.”
At least… I hope not.
When I was younger, we had our own vocabulary. Everybody was “man.”
“Hey, man.”
“Thanks, man.”
“What are you doing, man?”
We managed to use one word to express greeting, confusion, sympathy, celebration, disappointment, and occasionally mild annoyance. It was remarkably efficient. Somewhere along the way, “man” quietly packed its bags and moved out, and “bro” bought the house.
Language does that. It evolves while you’re busy paying your electric bill.
One day you’re speaking perfectly normal English. The next day you’re reading an article explaining phrases like “it’s giving,” “mid,” or “no cap,” wondering if you’ve accidentally stumbled into a graduate seminar on ancient languages.
The funniest part is that I genuinely enjoy watching language evolve. Every generation invents its own shorthand. My grandparents were probably baffled by things I said in high school. My parents certainly were. I distinctly remember hearing, “Is that what the kids say nowadays?” more than once.
Now I hear those words coming out of my own mouth, and I don’t appreciate the role reversal nearly as much as I thought I would.
Every once in a while, I get brave enough to try using “bro” myself. It never goes well.
It sounds natural when a twenty-three-year-old says it.
It sounds… rehearsed when I do.
The words leave my mouth, and somewhere in the distance I can hear my knees making sounds they didn’t make twenty years ago.
The truth is, I don’t mind getting older nearly as much as I expected I would.
Sure, I have reading glasses in more rooms of the house than I’d like to admit. I make noises every time I stand up, and I’ve reached the age where a good mattress feels more exciting than a sports car. Those are simply the terms and conditions of the membership.
What surprises me is how much freedom comes with aging.
When you’re young, there’s enormous pressure to know what’s cool, wear what’s cool, listen to what’s cool, and somehow always be one step ahead of whatever everyone else is doing. It’s exhausting.
Somewhere along the line, that pressure quietly evaporates.
I don’t need to understand every trend anymore. I don’t have to know every slang word or every viral dance or every social media platform that appears out of nowhere and disappears six months later. I can simply watch it all unfold with curiosity and a healthy sense of humor.
That’s a pretty wonderful trade.
I’m fairly certain today’s twenty-year-olds will experience the same thing someday. Forty years from now, some bright-eyed kid will greet them with whatever futuristic version of “bro” exists in 2066, and they’ll smile politely while wondering whether humanity has finally given up on complete sentences.
Then they’ll catch themselves laughing.
Because that’s really what aging is if we’re lucky. It’s not becoming disconnected from the world. It’s becoming comfortable enough with yourself that you don’t mind if the world changes its vocabulary without asking your permission.
So please, keep calling me “bro.”
I’ll smile every time.
Just don’t be offended if it takes me another thirty seconds to realize you were talking to me.
If this made you laugh, you’ll probably fit in around here. Subscribe (free or paid) for weekly essays about life, faith, aging, healing, and whatever else my overthinking brain wanders into. No promises I’ll ever be cool… but I’ll always be honest.