This may sound strange.

Since I started working in corporate, I have always used either “Thank you” or “Regards” to close an email. I felt weird using “Sincerely” and so went with regards and in cases where I was asking for something, I would use thank you instead.

I use regards a lot. I also work hard to have a positive tone to my emails as much as possible.

I recently was told by a colleague that I was being rather cold and they wanted to know what they had done to anger me. I was confused and asked why they thought that. They said that closing with regards instead of best or warm regards is the equivalent of the middle finger.

I have been using this for 15 years. Is this really true? I thought it was a way to be more familiar yet respectful.

Am I the asshole?