In the South East, they bring you sweetened (usually far too sweetened for my tastes) iced tea. This is amazingly universal.
I live in NC and have been probing the border for years.
For “nicer” restaurants, the universal sweet tea boundary seems to be precisely at the NC/VA border.
When you said south east I was thinking south east Asia and was trying to decipher what countries NC and VA were, until I realised you were American expecting everyone else to be American and understand American state codes.
That’s okay, I’m an American and interpreted South East as South East Asia too.
I don’t normally see the space when referring to the Southeastern US, only for South East Asia. I have no idea why that is and have never really thought about it.
I went through exactly the same thought process…
Expecting everyone to know the US states is just us getting revenge on Europe for demanding we keep track of which products are named after geographic regions and which are just recipes immigrants from those places brought to America.
If you’re not in Europe, sorry you got caught up in our couple’s spat.