Personally, I have never gotten the hype by the names “baby,” “babe,” “bae,” “honey,” it feels forced to me. I’ve seen those TikTok videos where as a joke people will address their spouses by their real names and the spouses get mad and say something like “my family and friends can call me that, but you can’t.” I’ve never gotten the seriousness of it. If we already know we’re boyfriend and girlfriend, or husband and wife, why should I have to address you by those names? Again, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with saying them, but using real names should become more common as well.
using pet names, titles, or other things like that are useful in media when you want to convey the relationship.
Like when a movie has a man greet a woman. If he just said ‘hi jill’ you wouldn’t know who she is to him. If he says ‘hey babe’ you assume they’re in a relationship.
So idk what is actually more common in real situations but it’s easy to assume people only use pet names when you’re not going to see anyone’s actual one on one conversations