Your boyfriend flying home a day early from a business trip and surprising you is a lovely gesture. Your boyfriend surprising you while you're bleaching your moustache and growing out your leg-hair before a waxing appointment? Not so lovely...

Had he arrived 24 hours later, my upper lip, legs and underarms would have been smoother than George Clooney in a man-sized velvet babygro. But instead, he discovered he was dating Chewbacca.

From that day on, he called me 'Teen Wolf'. Even in public? Especially in public, hoping he'd be overheard so he could tell the story of where the name came from.

Not the most affectionate pet name I've ever been called. No wonder he's an ex.

Another ex started calling me 'Metal Mickey' after he saw how many fillings I have in my teeth. To be fair, he didn't always call me it. He sometimes called me 'Jaws' after the Bond villain with all metal gnashers.

I think men are so brutal when taking the Mickey out of their mates they don't realise that their lady might object to the same no-holds-barred mockery.

Others over the years included 'Hobbit' after I'd shaved my legs in a hurry and forgot to defuzz my big toe knuckles, and when I was given a walking stick after injuring my leg I became 'Herr Flick'.

A beautiful Italian friend of mine has a long, romantic-sounding tongue-twister of a double-barrelled Christian name, but her boyfriend can't be bothered to say it - so he calls her 'Bob'.

There's only one thing worse than mocking pet names – sickly-sweet ones. Singer Robbie Williams has revealed that his girlfriend calls him 'Boozey-woo-woo' or 'Tickles-a-noo-noo'. And in an old workplace, I once stumbled upon the office bully on a staircase speaking in hushed tones to his wife on the phone, saying: "Your wuvverly wabbit will be home at six, Snuggle-wuggle-bum." He then saw me out of the corner of his eye, froze (a "wabbit" caught in the headlights?), and from them on, he never bothered me again.

Getting caught using a pet name in public is the grown-up equivalent of your teenage classmates hearing you accidentally call your teacher 'Mum'. I can remember back in primary school after eating too many fairy cakes at a friend's birthday party, while my mum mopped my sweaty brow and held my sick bucket, every pet name she came out with to soothe me was somehow food-related, which made me feel even queasier: "You poor little lamb" ... "my poorly old sausage" – you get the picture.

My friend's partner started calling her 'Baby-boo' and she absolutely hated it, but she didn't want to hurt his feelings, so she kept schtum figuring the name would peter out. It didn't. That was five years ago and he still calls her it every day.

She felt she'd left it too long to be honest, so after much brain-wracking we hatched a plan.

The next time his rugby-playing mate rang, my friend answered the phone and said: "He's upstairs, I'll just get him for you," before shouting "Pooh bear! Poohey-Pooh bear, darling! Phone!".

And lo, "Baby-boo" was no more.