Don't call me baby

I had a talk with my lover about the labels and the terms of endearment (TOE) that we choose to call the significant others in our lives. For every man, there is a term that is sacred and reserved for the one. It could be love, or honey or sayang. Those are my version of the holy grail of TOE. Others may differ of course. And for a woman to get to that plateau, it takes a series of progression of the emotions and longing that evolve into something of significance. I am somewhat freer with using the terms. I buy into the idea that we are capable of loving more than one person. That one person has a lot of love to give. That love is not love if it’s not given away. Why would we not spread the love? It is such a beautiful thing not to be shared with the people in your lives, people around you. Most people would throw a standard TOE like babe or sweetie to those that come into our daily lives. Sweetie is a standard for me. All my girlfriends have earned that label. I don’t think that it is such an exaggeration or over doing it to even be calling my girls darling or sayang. I have shared many secrets with my flock and even after knowing all my flaws they are still there providing me my life’s balance, supporting all the decisions I make; even the stupid ones. Doesn’t matter who comes in and out of my life, they’re there as I am for them. So the idea of a singular soul mate doesn’t really work for me. I actually have a handful of soul mates who I hang out with on a regular basis. Our activities are quite predictable – karaoke, dinner, movie or skinny lattes at my pad that usually come with a dash of gossip and men talk. Yes, we do talk about guys, probably just as much as guys would think about sex. And yes, we think and talk sex too. Probably more than an average guys would. Sex, food, travel and love are our main topics. Between Azura and I, we could be talking about anything under the sun but our conversation will always take a detour to the dark alley. TMI for many but we communicate in a censorship-free zone, my soul mates and I.

What I would call the knights and the princes who would come into my life differ from one to the next. My feelings will guide me and take me there. Maybe I have too much feeling that I can afford to be generous with my TOE. But then there are some people who are just too stingy with theirs. That doesn't mean that they are cold and void of romance. “Tis in the inflection comes the tenderness”, is a recent perspective that I concur with. I can’t deny it is all in the evolution of any relationship. You start cold and you end up somewhere warm, fuzzy and caliente. When the honey comes easy, it makes me nervous. I’m repelled by the scent of desperation. As to what I’d like to be called, as long as I’m not a generic ‘you’ or dear, which makes me feel like an old hag; anything goes.

To all lovers out there, may you find honey pots so sweet that you might even let yourself be called baby even when you have silver streaks in your hair and clearly you are off by decades to qualify as one.