I'm posting this in English so that I can get more feedback, but my native is Spanish and I can't perfectly gasp the subtleties of English, so I'm sorry for my broken English and any unclear thing I can write! :D I initially thought of writing this in Spanish so that I could explain myself better but I'd probably get fewer replies, if any, lol

Soooo, I was wondering about ways to adress people when you meet (not when you've just met). Be it your friend, the nice sales clerk of the grocery shop of the corner, etc. I've been reading bits here and there, and I'm familiar with words such as Schatzi, Liebling, etc. but I guess those are super cute and familiar, right? I still don't get the context where they can actually be used! I know it's better not to use them if you're not 100% sure, and in any case it would be better to 'test the waters' before saying something wrong.

In Spanish culture, there's some words like 'cariño', 'guapa', 'niño' which are widely used to adress people, just in general.

-¿Qué te pongo, <em>guapa</em>?(you can be called guap@ whether you're beautiful or not, anyway, compliments don't hurt huh? :D)

-Póngame dos magdalenas de esas de chocolate, por favor.

-¿Me pones dos lonchas finitas de emmental?

-Lo siento <em>cariño</em>, ya no me quedan más.

Mind that one is not necessarily close to that people, and they do not intend to sound ironical. I wouldn't think that bald baker in his 50's is flirting, either. They are smiling while saying that and it just feels comfortable and cozy. No feelings involved. They are being nice and I doubt anyone here in Spain would feel awakward when being adressed with such words.

My attempt of the German version would be something like 'Hallo, meine schöne, was darf's sein?' / 'Es gibt leider keinen Käse mehr, meine Liebling' but I feel that's absolutely wrong? Anyone to confirm my suspicions?

Also I would perfectly hi someone I'm good friends with with a "hola, guapa". It shows affection; no more, no less. It's not intimate or something you could only tell to someone you're really close to. It's fairly casual, indeed. No possiblilty of misundersanding.

I would love to use that kind of words in order to sound more fluent in German, but I'm afraid of making mistakes or offending someone, so I just hold myself back and try to be as 'standard' as I possibly can. But that's not languages's aim, right? They are made to express feelings but I just feel that anything coming out my mouth will sound rude or unrespectful because of cultural differences? Any thoughts on this?

I still have a lot of questions about German culture that I'll be soon posting.

Thanks in advance for anything you can share :-)