To hate being called "my lovely" by people who

[mrsmaltesers]

absolutely would not in a million years think of me as "lovely"

I find it so false and cheesy and just bloody awful and it realllllly gets kn my tits when i am blatently not a "lovely" person at all.

It would be like calling heidi klum "hello my fatty".

That was a stupid example but i am in a very unreasonable and non-lovely mood.

flying monkeys and my pretty are from Wizard of Oz

If they don't know your first name - though, for the OP, they clearly do - then I have always found "Sir" or "Madam" (as appropriate) more than acceptable.

Damn again. I give up. :o

I remember years ago when my GF came to visit me in Manchester from her home town, she almost fell over when someone in a shop said to her "Alright, cock"

Now I live in the midlands and to this day, being called Duck just makes me want to run around screaming

I like being called a "lovely" I think that it is empathetic and has an undertone of non-threatening type behaviour.

I wouldn't mind "cock" or "duck" to be honest . Perhaps there's a different forum for that though.

Maybe they're doing it on purpose. I always call moony looking people 'lovely' or 'darling' as they obviously aren't and their face looks like a slapped arse, in the hope of cheering them up

Moany*

I think its nice and friendly

Wouldn't bother me one bit.

This is really is something you can't control, don't even let it register on your radar!

A guy at work the other day said "hello gorgeous?" when I came into the office. My jaw hit the floor a bit.
I am not in the least gorgeous, either.

I should clarify, he said "hello gorgeous", not "hello gorgeous?". I am the one questioning my...gorgeousity. He just seemed to think it was an acceptable way to greet a colleague.

It's just a non-threatening way of addressing people. It's warm, it's harmless. You are a bit down on yourself OP - why do you not deserve to be thought of in such warm terms? Not worth stressing over, unless someone is clearly using it to put you down, which I seriously doubt.

Many areas have funny little ways of addressing people. I picture 'my lovely' to be spoken in a soft west country accent. In Glasgow females would get 'hen' and males 'son or Jim' when I was growing up. don't they use 'pet' in Newcastle? Wouldn't be offended at all.

I love it. Any form of affection is ok by me

Are you in the south west? If so it is just a regional thing, isn't it?

Same as hinny in the north-east.

YABU. It's a way of being friendly. Substitute various other words/phrases for similar friendliness in different parts of the country. People only seem to object if they come from somewhere where they don't use these terms, and don't understand the warmth behind them.

I love it because it invariably means I'm in Cornwall, which is one of my favourite places to be.

I love it because it is Cornwall. The other one they call you is 'my lover'.
I like it all, pet, hen, duck etc. It tells you which part of the country you are in.

I don't think it's regional. Addressing one's female friends as "lovely" appears to have become generally fashionable. It makes my teeth itch in the same way as "hun" does.

'my lovely' is regional-I have lived in the west country.

Sorry: I didn't mean to say it wasn't originally regional. It does now seem to be passing into common use in different parts of the country.

It is a term of endearment in the west country so yes,it is regional.

I overuse terms of endearment as (a) I think it's friendly and (b) while it might make folks' teeth itch, it does often save me the embarrassment of the fact that I sometimes forget names