It is this use that I was referring to when I spoke to my friends about it and when I suggested that it’s about love. I think I want to concentrate on Type 1, the use that men reserve for their friends. Bert and Ernie by See-ming Lee via Flickr When you lay them out like that you realise how rich that simple little word is, and all the things it can communicate. I find each of these uses really interesting. The man who is set on pushing into the queue or who believes an injustice has occurred might snap back, “I’m not your mate.” Of course, this use has the potential to be received as sarcastic. To stop a man pushing into a queue you might say, “The line starts back there, mate.” The nickname says that you have no hard feelings about the fact that the guy looked like he was going to push in, you’re not attacking him you’re just informing him in a friendly way. The word can also lighten a situation that could otherwise be threatening.That’s not to say that he likes strangers more than friends rather, he makes an effort to be friendly to strangers. He doesn’t normally use it in Type 1, above, so to hear him use like this is weird because he makes a distinction between his friends and strangers. I’ve heard my dad use the word in this sense and it freaks me out. So if a man picks up an item you dropped in a supermarket, you might say, “Cheers mate.” It sounds even kinder than just “Cheers” alone. The word ‘mate’ often adds a little extra something. A man uses it to be polite to a stranger.If he comes back I’ll bash him for you.” I think it is this type of use that Ron and I satirise. “I’m going to watch the match with my mates,” he’ll say. A man uses the word to describe his male friends, men he is close to and has known for some time.There are several different uses of the word ‘mate’, and here are three. We were talking specifically about why men especially use the word ‘mate’ and as I spoke I started to think that maybe it’s about love.īear with me on this.
When I was having a discussion about this the other night with that mixed group of mates (haha), I began to make up a theory on the spot. If I want to understand how it is possible for me to use it sarcastically then I need to understand the ways that men use it properly. So if Ron and I are being sarcastic when we call each other ‘mate’ in a text message, if we’re subverting the normal use of that word, then we have to think about what the normal use is. I bristle when someone says “I’m unique, all my friends think I’m totally nuts” or something like that. I also don’t make a big show of saying I’m different-because what does that even mean? Isn’t it totally hilarious when someone says “I’m a bit weird, me”? We’re all different in our ways. For a start I’m queer and I don’t like football (incidentally Ron is straight and a big footie follower). I don’t go out of my way to be different it’s just that there are some things about me that are uncommon. We’re hardly fringe, to be honest we like many mainstream things. But Ron and I are happy not being dudes, happy to mock ourselves for how useless we’d be in the army, happy not being cool in the mainstream sense. They do seriously want to be somebody’s mate. And for sure I’ve seen weedy men like Ron and I do that, but they do it earnestly. You might think that we’re aping those men because we want to be like that. By adopting their language sarcastically Ron and I are distinguishing ourselves from them. I think it’s partly that we’re making a mockery of the blokes who we are not: the jocks and and the hard lads and the cool kids and the real men. We have just used them in text messages for years, and maybe once or twice in real life. I suspect that Ron thinks these words are a bit naff just as much as I do, but we’ve never said it to each other. It’s an unwritten agreement that we’re ironic about it. I have an old friend who is male and we sometimes refer to each other with these stylised ways, calling each other mate or bro or dude over text message. I don’t mind it when someone uses ‘mate’ with their tongue in their cheek. Recently the word came up in conversation with a mixed group of friends, and one of the women said she didn’t really like it either. And yet it’s so common and apparently so harmless. I’ve always felt weird towards it, especially when people stick it on me.