The Problem with "They"

I'm going out on a limb here, but...I really don't understand the whole gender neutral and/or inclusive pronouns deal.

Okay, okay, before you start hurling your internet bricks of outrage, let me explain. Of course I empathize with peoples' otherness and respect their wishes to not be trapped within gender specific pronouns. (I can't say I actually legitimately "understand" it...I believe that's true for anyone who's never experienced a specific situation just as I can't "understand" what it's like to be a person of color. A thin person can't understand what it's like to be overweight and on and on.)

What I'm having difficulty getting past is the grammatical number disagreement in referring to one person using the plural "they" or "them." Put away those pitchforks of social media ire, people! It's just that as a writer, it hurts my ears to designate one person with a plural pronoun. (Except for maybe "Sybil," of course). 

There. I said it. (Ducks and covers...)

I brought this up to my wife, the English major.

She said, "Yeah, I was that way at first, too, but I got over it."

As will I. It'll take a little bit of practice for this old, stodgy fart to retrain my brain, but I vow that I will. The problem is my stodgy, old farty brain can't possibly keep up with the lightning quick and ever changing new developments in pronoun propriety.

Now, there are a slew of new pronouns to learn. There's zie, sie, ey, ve, zim, em, ver, zis, hirs, eirs, virs, Tad(?), and tons more! I'm not alone in being confused. My spell-checker is having a meltdown right now.

Again, I empathize with being made to feel otherness. More power to the social advocates for making changes and righting past wrongs. But there are so many new pronouns now, the thought of learning them all (and conjugating in Spanish!) strains my wee brain.

Man, for something called "gender fluid," I wished it flowed through my mind with more liquid clarity. Maybe using "they," as opposed to the numerous other new pronouns, won't be as hard as I originally thought.

Speaking of "otherness," there's an entire different other type of "people" living beneath the streets of Kansas City, ones you should pray you never meet. I'm talking about "The Underdwellers," my novella that many critics have called the scariest thing I've written. You can read it (along with a buncha other tales) in my collection, Twisted Tales From Tornado Alley.