I’ve never been able to get behind pet names. Hell, I even have a hard time with nicknames. Whatever you are introduced to me as, that’s what I’m going to call you for the rest of my life. It probably took a good 18 months for me to be able to call my nephew Bradley “Brad.” And it still feels weird/wrong sometimes.

I am super anti-nickname for myself and especially from people I barely know/barely like. If we are friends, sure go wild, within reason. Except not “Kat,” never “Kat.” I grew up getting Trina from my family and most of them still call me that but it feels so weird from other people. It’s almost too personal. And maybe I just assume everyone else feels that way, hence my reluctance.

Pet names are the same. They feel so fake/forced from me that if I try to utter a “Babe” it comes out more like “B*cough*Hey!”

Needless to say Keith and I don’t do pet names. I don’t have anything against them, I just *can’t.*

I’m not sure his position on them but he does call me “Dear” when he’s mad at me. I pointed it out to him once in the middle of a disagreement and he started to deny it and then just broke into a laugh because it’s totally true. Other than that, he calls me Katrina, occasionally Trina, I call him Keith, occasionally Hey. (When I’m talking about him in text or on twitter I occasionally call him K but that gets confusing because I also occasionally call myself K.)

(It kind of feels weird to yell “Keith!” when we are the only two people in our house so that’s when I usually default to “Hey!”)

Maybe I’ve just used up all my pet names for Daisy. She gets them all, although it did take a little while for me to warm up to it, I didn’t want her judging me!

(Sometimes when I am talking to Daisy, I call Keith “your dad” or “daddy” but even that feels weird. Maybe I’ll teach our future children to call him “Hey” that way everyone is on my side.)

But like I said, I’m not against pet names. There was a guy I knew in college round 1, he always used to tell me how much of a crush he had on me and we would make plans to hang out when he came into the city (he lived in Erie) but he’d blow me off every single time. But he called me “doll face” and it just made my little straightedge heart go aflutter.

I thought maybe it was a generational thing but I can’t even use pet names with kids. I can call little boys “buddy” but I’m at a total loss for girls. I get called “baby” “sweetie” “honey” by all manners of older women at work and I’m totally cool with it, but I just can’t do it. I’d rather be called that than some weird diminutive form of my name. (Some lady that used to work in my office calls me KK and it makes my blood boil. There is only one K in my name and you are getting awfully close to another nickname there and I don’t even like you! We aren’t friends! You don’t have permission to just up and call me anything you want!)

Maybe after Keith and I get married I can get used to the pet name thing. Maybe that will be my wedding present to him, to stop calling him “hey” and give him a real nickname to show him I care. How about Cuddle Cakes? (I googled pet names and so it’s either that or Gangsta Baby. Or Love Boodle. Or Sweet Pear Half in Your Own Heavy Syrup…WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE?!)