To all of my friends who do the following, this is not calling you out and telling you to stop. Just my personal opinion.
There is weird phenomena that I have over the last year seen and heard quite a bit. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me even though I have had it explained a few times now. All people do it, myself included periodically, but in different ways.
What is this I speak of? Calling everyone friend or bud or something along those lines. You have no idea how many times I will enter or leave a conversation and hear "Hi, friend." or "See ya later friend." I think it is just me, but it is unsettling to me. I don't know whether it feels impersonal or leading or what, but it doesn't sit well.
Now it turns out lots of people do this is some way. We skip out on using people's actual name in place of some other form of nomenclature. For instance, guys call each other Dude all the time. The word dude is some how endearing between guys most of the time. It's just our word. As soon as a guy switches over to calling another guy something like "pal", you know it is because they have no idea what their name is.
I myself am often guilty of this. Turns out that lots of people see me and know who I am and often will act like they are in my close circle of friends upon a second meeting. This is odd to me, especially since I suck with names. There are so many people at our church that I have to resort to "Hey there" more often than not. My apologies.
This whole word usage becomes even more complicated when between people of opposite sexes. Granted, I know I call a lot of girls "hon". I guess you could say it is my thing. And it turns out that I have friends that are girls, tell other girls that that is an indicator with me when we are close enough of friends. I will transition from your real name to hon if there is a level of comfort as friends between us. I don't think I do it consciously, just happens. If it bothers you, you can feel free to tell me.
But when my close female friends call me "friend" it clicks very abruptly in my head. There is something strange about it to me. I have actually asked a couple girls I know why they do it, and supposedly it is their term of endearment. It is supposed to let me know that we are close friends. Even though I have been informed of this, it still does the exact opposite in my head. It puts me in front of a wall that I guess doesn't exit from her side.
Now I have learned to walk around the wall as I am supposed to, but it definitely took getting used to.
Girls let me give you a heads up as well. And this is to no one specific, or anything like that. And this is also not to say that my intent is to date every girl I see. That is definitely not the case. But word to the wise ladies. If it does turn out that you like the guy past being a friend and you are hoping he starts getting the picture, calling him friend unravels all work you may have done. It may be endearing to you but it is a road block to him. We miss signals all the time from interested girls. The ones you think are blatant are not. But most guys, while oblivious to "make a move" signals, will read into "back off" signals, even if they don't exist. So be careful.
Guys same goes for you. If you call a girl dude, you have veritably shut her down. I don't know that for sure but it sounds like a good rule to go by. It all sounds to me, and granted I think too much, like when I hear "Hey, friend" I am really hearing "You know all we will ever be is friends, and maybe not even that good of friends cause I'm not sure what your name is." And in the same vein I would think as we say "Hey, dude" to a girl they might hear "hey your like one of the guys. just a bud that its very possible I wont care if I burp or fart in your presence." But by no means do I protest to believe I know what is going on in a woman's head. That is a maze more treacherous than that movie The Labyrinth with David Bowie.
But anyway, I digress. I am not telling people to stop what they are doing. I don't expect that. Just felt like a fun, silly little thing to write about today.
