Interestingly, depending on where you are, these terms aren't gender-specific.
In the UK midlands it's quite common for older women to use exactly the same terms on younger men.
As someone who's not from there but spent significant amounts of time there when I was a young man, this is proper weird.
(Just for clarification, I didn't call the people using these terms weird. I'm from a region where terms like that are reserved for romantic partners or maybe your children, so it was weird to me getting adressed with very intimate terms by strangers.)
Not even just the midlands. I live in the North West, and get called "my love" and "sweetheart" by older women quite often, and im in my 30s. Its not exclusively gendered either, its definitely an age thing rather than a gender thing. Older women will often use those terms for younger women as well, not just young men
I live in the Midlands and get called "duck" all the time lol but I'm from the north west and still call everyone "love" or "my love" as it's ingrained into me 😅 I don't bat an eye at being called sweetheart or darling by a man either unless the tone is off. It's just so common as a simple attempt at being welcoming that it just doesn't feel weird 🤷🏻♀️
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u/Square-Singer Aug 28 '26 edited Aug 28 '26
Interestingly, depending on where you are, these terms aren't gender-specific.
In the UK midlands it's quite common for older women to use exactly the same terms on younger men.
As someone who's not from there but spent significant amounts of time there when I was a young man, this is proper weird.
(Just for clarification, I didn't call the people using these terms weird. I'm from a region where terms like that are reserved for romantic partners or maybe your children, so it was weird to me getting adressed with very intimate terms by strangers.)