a new breed of "retrosexual"

[Benjamin Zimmer]

Wordspy defines "retrosexual" as "a man with an undeveloped aesthetic
sense who spends as little time and money as possible on his
appearance and lifestyle," with cites back to 2003:

http://www.wordspy.com/words/retrosexual.asp

In this sense, "retrosexual" is in direct opposition to "metrosexual".
But there's a new Facebook-oriented sense of the word getting passed
around in the media -- appearing first in the Boston Phoenix and most
recently in Time:

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http://thephoenix.com/Boston/Life/75527-Are-you-a-retrosexual/
Boston Phoenix, Jan. 22, 2009
Retrosexuals are people who rewind their own lives, digging into their
past to emerge with a current romantic partner.
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http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1921609-2,00.html
Time, Sep. 21, 2009
"Facebook makes it easier for you to take that first step of finding
someone again," explains Rainer Romero-Canyas, a psychology research
scientist at Columbia University. "It has finally provided a way for
people to reach out to someone without fear of rejection." The Boston
Phoenix even coined a term, retrosexuals, for people who are taking
the plunge into recycled love.
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--Ben Zimmer

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