“Calling your beloved “sweetie” is a term of endearment.”
Maybe in your ‘hood. In my neck of the woods, ‘sweetie’ is a generic word for female. It has no emotional connotation whatsoever. “Sugar” is a term of endearment as well as “honey”.
I first ran across that back in the early 70′s. One of my college buds dropped by on his way to Texas for a visit. I took him down to Momma’s for some world famous Bar-B-Que. The little girl brought our lunch over and asked him, “Sugar, you want a try?” His eys got big and he said “Try what?”. I had to calm him down and explain that try was southern for tray. Thought I was gonna have to throw cold water on him for a while. He had heard how friendly southern girls were and she was cuter then a bug’s ear.
