“How’s my favorite mistress?”
“Something tells me you’re not a bowing, scraping, boot kissing kind of guy.”
“You’d be surprised.”
Allyson here again, hallo!
I wish I could remember when I heard this originally, because I’d love to cite a source, or something. But it’s something I’ve known for so long I can’t remember. I’m sure I read it, so if it’s familiar to anyone else, I’m hoping you can help me out.
Some people (the example applied to men, but I know some women do it too), will make a habit of calling romantic interests by generic pet names (beautiful, baby, gorgeous), because it’s easier than remembering a real name if they’re not the kind of person to stay in a relationship for long.
Rather than trying to remember if they’re talking to Nikki, Jane, or Rob, they’ll always greet the person with “Hey, beautiful.”
This is not a broad, sweeping truth. A lot of people use those pet names as exactly that – terms of affection.
But it’s something I struggle to overlook. I write it into my ‘evil’ characters. The guys I want to portray as slimy, serpent like individuals, will never call my heroines by their real names. It’s frequently “Hey, beautiful.” The implication in my head is, he does it because he can’t be bothered to remember her real name, even if he knows it. That and for psychological reasons, it’s a means of dehumanizing the other person by removing them from their identity.
I don’t know that any of my readers realize this, but there you have it. Though to be fair, I will slip in a genuine “Hey, sexy” every once in a while.
The problem is, like I said, not everyone does that. A lot of people call their significant others baby, sexy, handsome, gorgeous, etc – and mean it in the sweetest, most affectionate way possible.
That means people use it in the books they write, as well. And I wish this wasn’t the case, but it’s jarring to me to be reading a sexy, seductive, intimate moment between two people who love each other, and have the guy call the girl “Baby”.
If it’s not happening a lot, I can overlook it. But I read a love scene today where it happened every other paragraph (which also calls to my neurosis over repeated words and using character names too often in dialogue). And after sentence after sentence of “I want you, baby”, “No really, I love you, baby”, “You’re the only woman for me, baby” – I’m not feeling the moment any more.
Does anyone else do this? What little things pull you straight out of the intended emotion of a written moment?
I think the term “Baby” has a negative connotation to me. Except in seriously dire, emotional moments when I can fully see it being used (and have used it) and infused with deep affection, I find it jarring.
Maybe that’s just a personality thing though. I’ve never been one for pet names. They don’t roll off my tongue naturally, and I think I’d just feel like I was playacting if I tried to use one on my husband. If I ever have children, though, I’m sure “sweetie” and “sweetheart” will come into play, but kids are a whole ‘nother story 🙂
I call my husband a bunch of pet names, and my kids too. Hon, buddy, sweetie, Peanut etc…
But, baby is one that almost always pulls me out of the story. Especially if it’s overused. There’s just something about it in a book that seems SO cheesy…
To me the pet name “baby” in a story is one of those things that happens in real speech that doesn’t work in written dialogue. (Like saying “like” and “um”.) After all, if we wrote the dialogue in a love scene the way it really flows in real life, it would be excruciating to read. (“oh….that…mmmm…”) And I’m pretty sure people aren’t THAT interested in the dialogue in those scenes, in the first place.