It all started a few months ago when I was in a “dancing” phase.

I like to think it was the mere exposure effect at work — the gist of it is that if you’re exposed to something enough, you kinda sorta start to dig it, which is probably why Paris Hilton hangs photographs of herself around her house.

During my journey through the world of dance, I would hit up the bar across the street from my apartment. There’s a great sticky dance floor, a weird collection of people who can’t really dance either but somehow still help elevate the fantasy that you’re on the set of Step Up (I mean, the vodka helps facilitate that feeling along too), and a drunk DJ that presents himself to you multiple times throughout the evening and reminds you that “I’m the DJ, by the way. What do you want to hear?”

By the way, the answer to that is always Ke$ha – Blow. What proves to be kind of an annoying radio song miraculously transforms into a midnight anthem. I mean, what more could you possibly want from a place than the looming feeling that it’s about to blow? I rest my case. However, whenever Ke$ha wasn’t spinning, there were quite a few songs bumped that involved some variation of the pet name “boo.”

You can probably see where this is headed.

I’d heard the term “boo” before, of course, but when you hear something fifty times in one evening, it starts to stick whether you want it to or not. After just a few nights out, I swear this word became part of my essence, and as my boyfriend is also part of my essence, it was only a matter of time until my two essences collided.

It started as a joke, I guess. In between asking him why the hell the toilet seat was still up and when he was going to feed me, I cooed sweet nothings at him, like, “I’m just so glad that you’re my boo.” At first he kind of shrugged it off, as he does with most things I say, but when I started solely referring to him as boo — really, Boo, — he kind of gave me a look like, Is this going to be a thing now? He just didn’t get it yet.

But even adult humans are completely trainable and open to new experiences. I began calling him my boo in public, not even for laughs, but because he’s my boo. It was like a reflex at this point. Did he bus my Panera tray for me? Thanks, boo. Do I want pizza? Yes, boo. Did he pay for my movie ticket? You shouldn’t have! Boo! But then something interesting happened. The mere exposure effect claimed its next victim. My boo started calling me his boo.

And now, it’s just something we do. But if you ask me, I think he likes it better than his last pet name, which was babykins. I know. I’m sorry. I’m not ready to be an adult just yet and this is how I cope.