Words are so interesting. They take several forms to every single person. If someone says the word “tree”, I might picture something completely different than someone else and that in itself makes a meaning.
Let’s discuss the word partner. It is a word that is gender-neutral in saying boyfriend or girlfriend. Such as the phrase significant other.
My Partner or also my girlfriend was talking to a woman about the Vagina Monologues. My partner was discussing that I was interested in getting involved. My partner described me as her “girlfriend” but the person thought she meant a friend that is a girl but if she would have said partner then they would have understood.
If you try to be gender-neutral and say Partner people automatically think you are in a same sex relationship but if you say Girlfriend then you mean a friend. What is wrong with the world and who calls there friends girlfriends?
Answer: Lots of people.
I don’t refer to my female friends as ‘girlfriends’, I call them ‘my friends’. I rarely need to specify their sex and/or gender.
I call my partner, obviously, ‘partner’. I used boy/girlfriend in high school, but that stopped soon after graduation, once, I suppose, I felt my relationships became “more”.
No one, yet, has asked me what line of business we’re in together.
But they have asked me why I call him my partner and not, say, boyfriend, which gives me the prime opportunity to talk about gender, language, and marriage equality (1,138 federal rights and protections!!). ALWAYS a great thing!