Dude me this!

Dude! How are you dude? What is up dude? Dude, how is it going? Dude me all over the place. Every one in the office is a dude. You can not be dude-enough! The dude flies over my head as people move in the office space and are forced by social convention to greet and ask each other questions they are not going to listen to, also by social convention. But we are all dudes. Where does the dude come from, and who was the first dude? Is it good or bad being a dude?
We all know the most famous dude: the Dude. And being compared to him, is beyond good or bad it just is. Just like the dude.
Googling for a dude definition gives this: (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/dude)

1. Informal An Easterner or city person who vacations on a ranch in the West.

2. Informal A man who is very fancy or sharp in dress and demeanor.

3. Slang

a. A man; a fellow.

b. dudes Persons of either sex.

I don't take the first one to be a word made out of appreciation, the second one seem to me to have lost that meaning long ago. I had never heard anything like that and do not think anyone in the office thinks that everyone else has fancy dress and or demeanour.

So definition 3a goes for about half while 3b marks us all except for that strange looking fellow in the corner: kind of short, kind of round, glasses and hair lengths is intermediate, no clue there. Name is probably, if you where to know it, something ambiguous as Pat, Sam or Alex. An unclear person of unknown sex. I guess that is just the person I would be calling a dude.