Personally, I have never gotten the hype by the names “baby,” “babe,” “bae,” “honey,” it feels forced to me. I’ve seen those TikTok videos where as a joke people will address their spouses by their real names and the spouses get mad and say something like “my family and friends can call me that, but you can’t.” I’ve never gotten the seriousness of it. If we already know we’re boyfriend and girlfriend, or husband and wife, why should I have to address you by those names? Again, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with saying them, but using real names should become more common as well.
TikTok is not real life. Nobody I know doesn’t use real names when addressing their spouse. I’ve literally never even met someone who would act the way you’re describing.
We’ve been married 15 years. If we use a first name to address each other it usually means we are out in public and trying to find one another. And that is only because if I shout ‘QD(cutie)’ 5 women will turn around thinking it is their SO so it isn’t super useful.
If you bugged our house you would think my wife’s name is Dear, QD, Darling, Beautiful, or “HOLY SHIT CHECK THIS OUT”. There is almost no chance you’d catch either of our real names on that tape.
i know a lot of people who use babe and honey in real life.
you’ve never met anyone in your life who uses pet names for their SO?
Never using real names ≠ not using pet names.
I also have never met a couple that never calls each other by their given name. That doesn’t mean those same people never use pet names.
“Never using real names ≠ not using pet names.”
nobody said they were.
“That doesn’t mean those same people never use pet names.”
Cool, nobody’s making that argument except you.
That was not what I said. Reread what I said. Your entire argument in this comment section is based off of a complete misreading of my comment.
they didn’t write or claim the vague and pointless response
“everybody uses their real names”.
they specifically claimed two things:
“Nobody I know doesn’t use real names when addressing their spouse.”
then they double down with
“I’ve literally never even met someone who would act the way you’re describing.”
“literally never”.
TikTok was an example. But those are real couples. I don’t know where you’re from but using real names is definitely not as common
using pet names, titles, or other things like that are useful in media when you want to convey the relationship.
Like when a movie has a man greet a woman. If he just said ‘hi jill’ you wouldn’t know who she is to him. If he says ‘hey babe’ you assume they’re in a relationship.
So idk what is actually more common in real situations but it’s easy to assume people only use pet names when you’re not going to see anyone’s actual one on one conversations
I don’t get the agenda the other comments are trying to push by pretending people don’t use terms of endearment, but don’t worry, you’re definitely in the right here.
“terms of endearment” or “pet names” are common phrases because of the commonality of pet names, especially in romantic relationships.
Re-read the comments. No one argued that nobody uses terms of endearment. The argument is that using given names doesn’t need to be normalized because it’s already an extremely normal thing…and that the abnormal behavior would be someone actually getting upset that their SO called them by their given name.
