Lesbians of lemmy, how do you introduce your SO to other people without getting them confused for just a friend?
Since a lot of women have started to call their female friends “girlfriends”, I have to wonder how women with actual girlfriends have been dealing with this lol
partner is a brilliant word about to made meaningless, apparently, so, love you all, friends, buddies, girlies, girlfriends, boyfriends, beards, compatriots and fellow travelers, fuck i’'m old I forgot a few dozen thousand.
Just introduce them as your partner. Lesbians are so habitually entrenched in hiding their sexuality.
I have so many pairs of “friends” come in appliance shopping. Gay men come in, it’s “This is my husband Mike”. Gay women come in and it’s like “This is my friend Paula. She helps me pick out appliances and definitely doesn’t live with me”.
I don’t pry, because I’m just selling appliances. But it’s pretty obvious.
Since a lot of women have started to call their female friends “girlfriends
That was the original meaning of the word before it ever had romantic connotations.
From Wikipedia…
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest meaning of the word “girlfriend”, from 1859 on, was to designate “a female friend; esp. a woman’s close female friend”. In the late 1800s, it took on the meaning of “A female with whom a person has a romantic or sexual relationship”.
"Started?" Here in Tennessee we never stopped calling each other girlfriend.
But as others said, "Partner." I use it to talk about my boyfriend (since I'm a well-known demi person locally and the sex of whoever I'm with can be a massive question mark.)
Yeah, hate to break it to you, but it isn’t even just women/girls using it for platonic friends. Men/boys are too.
Not too surprisingly, that hasn’t happened with boyfriend that I’ve run across. Which is kinda fucked up when you consider what the difference in usage represents.
My grandma talks like that but in my area in my generation it’s generally understood that [gender]friend is romantic and friend isn’t. If gender is relevant it’s “the [genders]”
That terminology is incredibly frustrating as a lesbian. Especially since it’s regularly used alongside calling my wife my friend despite me repeatedly referring to her as my wife
I understand why this is frustrating and am not trying to take that from you, but thought you'd enjoy knowing that the last old lady who I confronted about calling my girlfriend as my girlfriend (in the platonic sense) was genuinely confused about my irritation, since "isn't that the best part of having a girlfriend instead of a boyfriend? That they're also your best friend? I always thought you two really got that part right."
It's some arethestraightsokay stuff (and happened in like 2004) but I thought it might give you a smile.
Yeah there are people who can pull it off, but because many men fetishize sapphicism it’s uncomfortable in general, especially since men do absolutely nothing for me and I’ve had guys get really brazen with hitting on me when they see me do gay stuff.
So yeah if there’s no doubt in my mind it’s a “get it girl” style nice, I’m cool with it but that’s a hard bar to cross.
Someone once introduced their gf literally saying "We are in a relationship" - it’s sounds awkward/clunky but I didn’t even notice that, it didn’t make me think for a moment, its precise, short, and above all clear. I appreciate direct communication way more than ‘what sounds nice’.
On this vein, I was a policeman 10 years ago… and was talking about my awesome partner* (a policewoman) to a friend of mine who I hadn’t seen in a bit. And she totally thought I was talking about my ‘girlfriend partner’… I still chuckle a little thinking about it.
The point of speaking is to express an idea clearly to listeners. So, since this usage of 'partner' to mean the other person in a romantic relationship has become popular, to be specific I say 'business partner'.
Yeah I thought about that one too, but it feels too broad of a term. Partner could be used to refer to a work colleague. And I’d feel really tempted to add “in crime” at the end lol
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