He must be great fun at parties.
At my local 24 hour breakfast place, the waitresses call you “honey”, and I literally have given it a total of a half-second of thought in my entire time eating there. Waitresses calling you “honey” is simply part of the southern diner experience, same as grits and chicken fried steak.
When you go to Disneyworld and the giant Mickey Mouse mascot gives you a hug, he is not really that happy to see you. It’s the same thing.
To analyze it as the author does demonstrates a special level of cluelessness and oversensitivity. Of course, such politeness and familiarity also hearkens back to a more polite time in American history, and the academic left is hell-bent on destroying every last vestige of that.
Probably a beta-male.
Wonder how he would respond to “Kiss my grits!”?