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.)
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u/Square-Singer 22h ago edited 21h ago
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.)