I’ll take the tats, the handlebars, the Mennonite beards. But I cast a gimlet eye when you all call me Dear. It may just be wait-person patois among the twentyish or thirtyish. But when it’s applied to diners of a certain age, it’s the D-word. Isn’t the leisure business is in the business of making guests feel like VIPs? Unless the meaning has changed to Vapid, Infirm, and Pitiable, you’re not giving me that vibe! The chummy nickname for kids and grandparents pours a pitcher of ice water on what otherwise might have been a cool night out.
Every year past fifty, women face an increased likelihood of being deared or honeyed by well-meaning people who’ve theoretically been hired to please. Puhl-eze stop it.
Mental health advocate Rona Maynard captures the deflating message of the D-word perfectly. “[It’s distressing when] people young enough to be our children are addressing us as children,” she says in “Don’t Call Me Dear!”
When my 75-year-old self shows up in a hip, new place, I’m very likely to get these chin-chucking, head-patting, cheek-pinching endearments. I often protest them—with mixed results. Even when my ask is granted, the dear tends to lope back at evening’s end, swiped off the table like leftover breadcrumbs.
I’m campaigning to kill this four-letter word in the service-industry. And I’m asking people to join me. We’ll also do in hon, honey, sweetie, sugar (or any other noun that might be suffixed with the word pie).
For the hipster server, the terms might feel like a carefully aged artisanal language, signaling a nod to the Shirls and Bevs who fill bottomless cups in homey, un-self-reflecting locales. But being deared in a culinary hot spot makes the dearie feel not just put off, but put down. A lug nut wrapped in a luxe burrito.
Yet the term’s gone viral. I’ve had dear sightings at restaurants, hotels, and shops in popular destinations with hundreds, even thousands, of miles in between. Venice Beach. Austin. Brooklyn. How dear am I, I have to wonder. Could my dearness have a national reach?
Dear is a fundamental downer. Because age happens. Whoever you are now, whatever your style or social milieu, every one of you is heading in my direction.
I’m talking about you, Cooper!
So why not join my dear kill while you’re young and dear-free? I can guarantee: if you drop the dear my dears, your future will thank you.
Suellen Mayfield is a writer living in Venice, CA
