My boyfriend gets mad at me when I call him dude/bro. Is this controlling? I call everyone dude/bro. It's so natural for me. Whenever I call him that, he gets mad at me and says it makes me seem masculine. He also said "Is this a problem?" which I don't even know how to respond to. No, I don't think it's a problem. I just end up apologizing, but it makes me feel so uncomfortable that he gets legit mad and not in a light-hearted way.