After a mild start to winter, a cold front and snow storm has rather rudely hit much of the country this weekend. Those of us who are not using the weather as a socially-acceptable excuse to avoid human contact for the next 48 hours face the predictable, arduous dance of winter dressing. It’s time to shimmy into that puffer coat, lace up those waterproof boots, grab a scarf, hat, and gloves.

Or maybe not. Though the past few months have shown fashion types eagerly appropriating dorky winter staples such as Patagonia fleeces and airbag-level puffer coats, there has been little love for the glove. Yes, this resistance could have something to do with amenable temperatures, but I don’t expect much change as the chill sets in.

That is because I spent this week conducting an extremely unscientific survey: checking out my fellow New Yorkers’ hands during each commute. I saw knuckle tattoos. I saw engagement rings. I saw plenty of chewed cuticles. What I didn’t see: a whole lot of gloves.

From a logistical perspective, it makes sense. You can't text in gloves, which makes the accessory less-than-ideal for those of us who are slaves to Slack channels or Gmail inboxes. Of course, there are touchscreen gloves, but as with artificially intelligent robots, our brightest minds have not quite perfected that technology.

The gloves that work best for typing are often thin, which means they’re not all that great at the whole keeping-you-warm thing. The thicker the fabric, the harder to text.

When you're not able to hit your phone's space bar with 100 percent accuracy, the result is usually getting so annoyed that you rip your gloves off in disgust. So, no gloves.

Much like winter coats, the best-looking gloves are the least-insulating. If cutesy red leather riding gloves kept my fingers from numbing, I would own a pair for every day of the week. Unfortunately, the material provides little warmth.

Because of this, you’re more likely to see a pair of leather gloves on actors who reenact murders on Investigation Discovery shows than you are on the hands of law-abiding commuters.

According to those in the industry-know, my glove-ocalypse theory has, um, legs. A representative for retail analytics firm EDITED told me that winter 2018 has seen a 10.7 percent decrease in the number of gloves in stock. Elizabeth Shobert, director of digital strategy for retail analytics company StyleSage, pulled similar data: on average, retailers sell twice as many scarves as they do gloves.