Straight from Sass, who has over 13,000 tweets:
(THIR. TEEN. THOUSAND?!)
An FB friend just used the term "hubby wubby." Another friend and her husband regularly call each other "Lover." #ack #saveme
Ha! And here I thought I'd have NOTHING to write about today.
So...pet names.
Couples have them.
Fred and I have them. Well. One.
About a year ago, Fred read an online article that challenged couples to actually call each other by their real names for 30 days. Okay, we get it. The pet names are annoying. So we tried it. We failed. We failed so hard.
It was weird. It is weird!
I can't even express how SO WEIRD it is to hear the word "Erin" come out of Fred's mouth when he's addressing me directly. I've known him for seven years now and the only time he ever uses my name when he's talking to me is when he needs to alert me to trouble. When I hear "Erin" come out of his mouth, I'm on high alert. My mind immediately swirls with all sorts of ooky questions, like,
"Am I about to get hit by a taxi?"
"You...still have a job, right?"
"I'm sorry, did someone just die?"
These are the kinds of things I'm thinking when I hear my name come out of Fred's mouth. My heart skips a beat in a not-good way.
Of course, we use "Erin" and "Fred" when we are talking about each other to others. But alone? Just us, alone? ...We call each other Poo.
Yeah. Poo.
Like:
"Hey, Poo!"
"Wanna go running, Poo?"
"POO-OO-OO! I was watching that, gimme the remote."
Does it not fall trippingly off the tongue?
I don't even know how it started. I think it might have been from watching South Park; then we started calling the cats "The Poo Poos" because that's what they do - eat/sleep/poo. (Oh. They make a lot of poo.) From there, it just became a term of, well, endearment in our home.
Poo.
Hey, at least it's not "honey" or "baby" -- I don't hate very many things in this world, but, WHOO BOY, do I hate being called "baby". It's probably because I am the baby in my family. Baby. It's so dismissive:
"You sit in the back - you're the baby."
"She gets away with everything, just 'cause she's the baby."
I really hate "baby" as a couple-y nickname.
I don't know what we are going to do when we start a family. I think it's fun (and funny) that Fred and I call each other Poo. It's better than all the regular sappy nicknames and I think it comments nicely on the sense of humor that we share. However, I can't go around calling my kid "Poo" -- right? Can you just see me at the park:
"C'mon, Poo! Let's go!"
That would not be good. I mean, people would look askance.
Do you have any odd nicknames for your...Lovah (...no)
your...Partner (gurrrr)
your...
...SIGNIFICANT OTTER?
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Also, let's discuss a related topic: what do you think is the best term for those special folks that aren't a "Wife" or "Husband"?
I ask because I'm in my upper 30's now, as are a majority of my friends. Unmarried 30-somethings referring to their boyfriends and girlfriends as boyfriends and girlfriends: Yay or nay? What do you think of that? I feel like we might be too old for that? It's a little like, "Boy? Girl? Hardly." But I can't come up with a likeable alternative. Significant other is too formal. Partner and lover sound so squicky.
So what do we call them, folks?
What do you think?
Nicknames for the special people in your life - GO.
