Happiness Health and Beauty Secrets

Before reacting to the headline, please read the article.

This is not political.
It’s about warmth, hostility, and how human beings communicate with strangers.

Maybe I’m getting old.

Or maybe we are slowly removing harmless human warmth from everyday life.

I was talking to a friend recently who said she was repulsed hearing a man call a waitress “sweetie” or “honey.”

Meanwhile, when the woman at Costco smiles and says “Hi honey,” I actually feel warmth from it. Human connection. Familiarity. Softness.

It made me stop and think.

How did we get to a place where casual warmth between strangers can sometimes feel socially dangerous?

And oddly, at the same time, our culture seems perfectly comfortable using extreme insults and hostility online toward complete strangers.

Somewhere along the line, it feels like we became more comfortable being harsh than being kind.

Now before anyone misunderstands me:

I am absolutely not defending harassment, inappropriate touching, or disrespect toward women in any form whatsoever.

Not even remotely.

In fact, I’m probably more cautious than most men. I would never touch a woman — even someone I was dating — unless she clearly initiated that level of comfort first.

There is a huge difference between:
genuine friendliness,
warmth,
flirtation,
condescension,
and harassment.

Those are not all the same thing.

And yes, I fully understand that some women may hear terms like “sweetie” or “honey” and associate them with being talked down to or objectified because of past experiences, so I avoid using those words myself.

But I also haven’t completely lost my humanity or playfulness either.

After a long tech support session where someone solved a huge problem, I’ve definitely joked:

“You saved my life. Where do I send the flowers?”

or

“You’re a sweetheart.”

To me, those moments still feel human.

But I also wonder whether we are losing something important in modern life:
small moments of softness between human beings.

Friendly conversations with strangers.
Compliments.
Warmth.
Playfulness.
Humanity.

Maybe intent, tone, context, and energy still matter more than the literal word itself.

Or maybe I’m wrong.

Maybe this really is outdated thinking.

But I genuinely worry we are becoming a culture more comfortable with cruelty than kindness, suspicion than connection, and outrage than warmth.

Am I just old?

Or are we slowly teaching people to communicate like lawyers instead of human beings?

I genuinely want to know what people think.