"Hello trouble"

Treacle, trouble (sometimes ‘ohhh here comes trouble with a capital T’) doll, hen - pally ways of saying hello. Might be regional/ class-based or something. Got one family friend who calls everyone petal! Male, female, cats, whoever. Personally I feel somewhat slighted when people greet me by name, it’s like, am I not in the gang 😜

I've been unlucky enough to have attended two funerals in the last couple of months, and it's my mother's in ten days or so. At each of those I attended there was real warmth and affection (and yes, gentle humour) in the greetings, which I found supportive. If anyone smiles at me and says 'hello trouble' at my Mum's I'll be very grateful for it. It's going to be a fairly traditionally formal funeral, but there's still room to be warm and kind. Over-formality can be grim.

My dad greets me with hello trouble.
I greet my brother's with the same.
When my boss walks in I say hello, here comes trouble.
I greet my teen granddaughter with hello, it's botherboots.
No one takes offence!
The knicker twisting on this site is incredible.

@LolaSmiles or the OP is just someone who gets offended quite easily.

Where I live its a greeting meant in affection - usually said to someone the speaker and is said to men, women and children. But it's a bit off to use it in a formal setting like a funeral

I say it all the time as friendly casual, its has hit a nerve a couple of times but its been explained and laughed off - one was to a child who was quiet mischievous - nothing had happened and I had said it tongue in cheek but her Dad got a bit defensive. But I just said - oh said with affection nothing happened, but she is a livewire and nothing wrong with that etc

People often move area. As I did. The general warm greetings have varied hugely between the three areas that I've lived in for long periods (East Midlands, Yorkshire and the south-east). I adjusted.

They do move and adjust, but what I mean is that if the OP was somewhere where everyone under the sun says "hello trouble" to everyone else then it's unlikely she'd come on Mumsnet writing a post about it surely she'd already know.

Something about the interaction at the funeral had left the OP feeling uncomfortable. It might have been purely the words "hello trouble", it could also include the other factors such as tone of voice, body language, the situation, the fact she only vaguely knows this man, or a combination of all those factors.

Oh I love treacle, that was a big one when I was growing up

I think that people who look to be offended about things like this, just dont understand that humans interact with each other informally, or they dont like it. Its really sad.

You are really overthinking this. Stop contributing to the over offended society we seem to now live in. Its oppressive. As PPs have says it's an inoffensive affectionate greeting. It's not meant literally.

I'm realising as I type, that I'm struggling to care whether such greetings (assuming outside of professional life) are aimed more at women or not. Life's been pretty shit for me for a while, and I'm lapping up any warmth, friendliness and general affection or someone's genuine pleasure at seeing me, like a thirsty man in the desert.

I just can't find it in my to dredge up my usual feminism on this subject.

My grandad used to say this to me when he was alive. Context is all important, but my grandad was lovely and it was said lovingly all my life from child to adult.

Aw, I miss Treacle! I used to get that.

'Hello trouble' has been said to me all my life and I say it to other people. It's just affectionate.

I grew up in the Midlands and from what I recall, it was when people started using jokey names or mild insults that you know they liked and trusted you enough to do so. Someone might say 'Alright, big nose' and I'd laugh and reply with 'Who you talking to, bigger nose?'. In those days, such things were considered mild affection and they made life so much lighter than everyone being offended and picking apart everything said to them. 'It must have meant something else' - no, not really. Or as my DH would say, 'Who put a weed up your arse?'.

People often move area. As I did. The general warm greetings have varied hugely between the three areas that I've lived in for long periods (East Midlands, Yorkshire and the south-east). I adjusted.

This. My oldest brother greets me this way - has for as long as I can remember (I'm 48, he's 62). I don't think I'd accept anyone but DB greeting me similarly, though, now I'm actively thinking about it... but I do know that he started calling me "Trouble" when I was a toddler in the hope that I'd stop asking how high when our mother said "jump" (I asked him a few years ago). It's affectionate, depending on tone of voice - and, actually, he greets me with this at every family event, including funerals. His now teenage son thought that my name was 'Trouble' for a while.

Then again, he's not a mere acquaintance. Were he, I would ignore with a withering look (or a Paddington Stare). Familiarly, though... it's affectionate without being either creepy or plain ol' misogynistic.

Is this another regional thing? Because I don't see it as sexist at all, nor flirty. It's just a warm and mildly affectionate greeting in my experience, and used equally to men and women.

ETA that I don't see it as inappropriate at a funeral, either. There's even more room for warmth and affection at a funeral. Most people need it, and it takes the edge off the sombreness.

I love it when a bloke calls me trouble 😳

Ugh my abuser used to call
me that. Very creepy

Maybe he forgot your name

I like it! But then I am trouble so 🤷🏻‍♀️ 😂

This is why the world has gone to shit.

Exactly!!

The most offence I might take from it is that Im so meek and boring, its a bit of oxymoron.

It is not clever, sophisticated or amusing - in fact it is just patronising.

I thought this was going to be about someone saying it to a child and the long term psychological damage this would cause in their self image.

Vaguely disappointed.

Heavens above! It's a genial, familiar way of someone, usually older, saying hello.
If it was said to me at an important meeting in front of business colleagues I would think it trivialising and inappropriate but, from an acquaintance, why bother?
There's bigger things in life to be offended by