Pet Names

(I’m not your honey, darling, sweetheart, dear, ducky, or any other diminutive creature | BlogHer)

…And not names for the small furry set that are currently working on their 22.5 hours of sleep needed per day.

So, anyway, yeah. I was wandering around blogher again, and came upon the above post about being called pet names by servers and strangers and other random folk. At first I was all “bah, that’s a silly thing to be all peeved over!” but then I remembered that at times I get pissed about it too.

Probably contrary to most of the commenters over there, I don’t get upset with the random “Ma’am” – though I’m prone to making jokes about how old that makes me feel. I’m not pissy with other random things, and have been known to drop a “darlin” or similar on the occasional stranger myself.

When it *does* piss me off, however, are on people who aren’t strangers, yet think they know me well – but seem to miss the fact that I. hate. them/find them creepy/think they’re asshats/have repeatedly told them to shove their condescending assholery back where it belongs.

This happens a lot online. In person, I’m far more likely to shrug such things off as slips of the tongue, not intentional slights or cut-downs. But to people who actually try to call me “hun” after my repeated comments that I am in no way shape or form going to accept that from them, and why – those people piss me off and tend to get an ear(eye)full. And then? They continue to use it. THOSE people piss me off.

But random strangers – no big. Do we really believe that people we don’t know really care enough about us to either use such terms of endearment to piss us off, or really consider us their dears, huns, sweeties, darlings? Are we so wrapped up in our own worth that we really think they have considered us at all before using such words? Perhaps if we weren’t so stupidly offended over every. little. thing. this’d be a much more polite society.

Course, if those dickheads who KNOW why I’ve asked them to quit with the smarmy suck-ups would stop, I might be a touch more polite with them too. Heh. it’s one thing to have it be unintentional and habit by strangers, and quite another when it’s deliberate and diminutive by people you know. It’s an important distinction to make, I think.