Does this piss you off or AIBU?

[Besswess88]

Today in a shop I dropped something out of my pocket at the self service, I knew I had but before I had a chance to pick it up a kindly man behind me said “you’ve dropped your card darlin” (my age, mid forties).

I know in the scheme of things it’s not important but anyone else absolutely hate being called “terms of endearment” by absolute strangers, esp when they are men.

It’s that low level misogyny that just grates on me.

I think that 'cock' is an abbreviated version of cock sparrow.

Errr no, I would just be grateful that someone was helpful regardless that I already knew I had dropped something, I am a person who is more relaxed now about things during this pandemic as this is the small stuff and don’t want to overthink trivial stuff such as this, move on and think of the bigger picture.

Get over if . He was probably old . I often call people darling on the phone I l now ITS wrong I Always apologise And NO ONE Has ever been offended male or famale you are so woke I'm surprised you can even do anything at all without finding offence

I call most people - male, female, young, middle-aged, old - 'Darling' - sometimes because I've forgotten their name.
I am a middle-aged woman.

@Cassilis

men feel entitled to call us "dear" "love" "darling" as if all women belong to them.

💯 agree.

Worth reading through all the dross comments like ‘he was just being friendly’, ‘like it or not’ etc to get to yours 👍

Ah thanks

I hate being called darling sweetheart love etc by anyone other than my husband

I say to most of my customers "Have a good day/evening" when I serve them. I mean it! I am a nice friendly person, which is why I have always worked customer facing service roles from the shop floor (so to speak) to management. I do want them to have a nice day!

Does that piss you off or feel like the old "Have a nice daaaay" shite that McDonalds made its servers say? Forgetting that a surly UK teenager chucking a burger at you was unlikely to sound sincere? :o

despise it, I am not your darling, or your love or duck etc

Christ lighten up. I call everyone petal, darlin, love, etc. From the most senior managers at work to strangers I meet. You sound like a right miserable sod

@ufucoffee

Christ lighten up. I call everyone petal, darlin, love, etc. From the most senior managers at work to strangers I meet. You sound like a right miserable sod

Well, aren’t you a delight.

@Postprandial I'm more of delight than the misery knickers OP

YABVU.

seriously if that's your biggest worry in life you are lucky!...I wouldn't be offended. I'd be pleased he pointed it out. You need to sort your thinking out.

It’s absolutely a regional thing I think, In the North and in Wales etc everyone gets a “term of endearment”

Fair enough if you’re being cat called on the street “Show us yer tits love!” Then yes that is not on but by the sounds of your OP the guy was generally just pointing out you’d dropped something 🤷🏻‍♀️

Can't even be bothered to comment.

What an absolute bastard telling you that you'd dropped something

Jesus!

I’m in the south east and “love”, “darling” etc are all standard and used by men and women. I think it’s nice actually. Warmer than “dear”, or “sir” or”madam”.

Boils my pss when men I don't know call me love or dear - and yes of course it is misogynist - they wouldn't call another man this crp

@clpsmum

What an absolute bastard telling you that you'd dropped something

It is of course perfectly possible to ‘Hey, you dropped something!’ without the addition of anything further.

Wait a few years and it will turn to ' dear ' .

@Cassilis

But you're boss is your "superior". Op isn't this man's superior. So if you wouldn't call your colleague it might have traction but this man isn't "beneath" op just because he's a man

So you can only call people you perceive to be beneath you ‘darling’?

Why would you consider your colleague to be beneath you??

(And I appreciate superior / inferior is contentious but I did mean in the work sense of seniority. That was the better word)

So I wouldn't call someone who was my senior lovely or darling, I would call a peer darling or lovely occasionally depending on the relationship.

You could have just said ‘Ahh thanks love’ 😘

@Besswess88

Today in a shop I dropped something out of my pocket at the self service, I knew I had but before I had a chance to pick it up a kindly man behind me said “you’ve dropped your card darlin” (my age, mid forties).

I know in the scheme of things it’s not important but anyone else absolutely hate being called “terms of endearment” by absolute strangers, esp when they are men.

It’s that low level misogyny that just grates on me.

Dear lord almighty 🙄

Context is everything
You’ve dropped your card darlin - eye contact and quickly moving on once you said Thankyou fine

You’ve dropped your card darlin - whilst staring at your boobs/bum generally making you feel uncomfortable he’s hanging around - then yeah

My daughter had an older man recently stop her in the street asking for directions..all fine she pointed the way...except he then just stood their staring at her for a while. She was with a male friend who then stood infront of my daughter asking politely if he was ok. Now this doesn’t mean she will never offer direction again but I know she was very uncomfortable and the older man didn’t seem to get it ..only once he realised she was with someone he left.