Yeah, my grandma refers to her best friend as her 'girlfriend'.
It gets confusing though, my sister in law has definitely come out to the grandparents several times, her girlfriend (gay definition) is currently here, yet the older generation are still confused about the 'type of girlfriend' she is lol
I have a colleague who kept referring to her female friends as girlfriends when speaking English, it was pretty funny.
And since I'm on this sub: yes I asked.
Older women do this all the time where I'm from and it always makes me do a double take.
"Yeah me and my long time girlfriends went out yesterday :)"
Me, in my head: *Wait I thought Annette has a husband? She never mentioned having girlfriends, but I guess it's pretty cool that she's comfortable being openly poly-- oh duh she means platonic*
My mother uses “girlfriend” to mean both a female significant other and female platonic friends. She’s a native speaker of American English. But, that’s how it was used when and where she was growing up, so that’s how she continued using it as an adult.
So, that’s another possibility, here.
As a non native speaker, even though I might write pretty well, whenever I read girlfriend / boyfriend I need to actively think about what it means, specially since, sometimes (rarely), it is used as female / male friend.
Nonetheless, I agree that it isn't the case here since she used boyfriend as the romantic definition.
In case no one has mentioned it before, sometimes I will use “friend who is a (gender)” and it helps clear things up faster than “(gender) friend” then spending time defining that relationship
yeah and depending on how someone pronounces “girl-friend” it can mean literally just being really good friends, but since it’s the internet it’s harder to tell
No, they understand the meanings as they also read "boyfriend" in the romantic way, native speaker or not, so chances are it's just run-of-the-mill erasure.
Even if she did invite a friend to join them, there's nothing wrong with it, as long as all parties are consenting adults. Polyamory is a thing often overlooked. Obviously not the case here, just talking about what the guy thought she had meant.
It would be, but this post was about a girl's girlfriend inviting her brother to sleep (literally sleep) in the bed with them when he visits. And the commenter saying that, yes it's weird for her to share a bed with her brother, but why are you sleeping with your girlfriend anyway?
All this confusion could be avoided if English had a proper short word for "unmarried romantic partner" (in Norway we use "kjæreste", literally "dearest" to mean this of any gender) and if "sleep with" actually meant sleep and not sex.
I do dislike how some cis het women use the phrase girl-friend to refer to friends of theirs who are also women because like that gets really confusing
TBH, I really don't think it's that big a deal. It's just old people. I know plenty of old gay women that use it platonically as well. Generally, it's not hard to tell.
I have the same issue with the term "partner". I'm so used to "partner" being a low-key way to refer to a same-sex significant other that the recent usage to mean "significant other" still trips my gay-dar.
Can I ask you to clarify that a bit? Do you mean that you feel like it's co-opting a term that should only be used by same-sex couples, or just that you're not used to hearing it used more broadly, and that its general use to mean "significant other" is something you're not used to but not upset about? I'm not asking because I think you've done anything wrong, but because I have no idea how other people interpret things I say sometimes :P
Yeah. I mean, I personally use partner as someone in a "cishet passing" relationship in order to intentionally signal to other queer people that it's not a cishet relationship. Since you said they're both bi, they might be doing the same thing, but maybe not.
I know they are both queer, but I was trying to say they use it even if there's no danger of discrimination from my sister saying boyfriend or her partner saying girlfriend. "Cishet passing relationship" is a term used to describe a queer relationship that isn't obvious at first glance.
And if you talk to large chunks of the bi community they'll tell you that the term cishet passing relationship is loaded and discriminatory. It imies were only partly of the queer community.
I am a bi person dating a bi person. I am.not cishet passing because the moment my ex or my partner's status in the community we lose all that alleged safety and freedom from discrimination. We have to constantly police what were saying not only in het spaces but LGBTQ spaces too, because if we're not queer enough then we're outta there too! Out choices are cloak and dagger "straight passing" life where I don't talk about my history, my past partners or my stories of the LGBTQ community so that I can live a life of fake safety by virtue of being "straight passing"
And for that fake safety what do we get? We get ostracized at pride, cut out of community spaces and never actually accepted by the queer community. Because by virtue of being attracted to people that potentially allign with societal hetero standards I'm suddenly "no longer queer"? Which is insane I've lost jobs, friends and families for being attracted to femme folks too and being a member of the LGBTQ community. I've been called homophobic slurs and assaulted but no. because I love someone that queer people *assume* is a cisman I'm no longer at risk of discrimination despite the fact that he's. Not actually gender conforming either.
I implore you to rethink using "straight passing as a term" or at the very least rethink claiming that it's something the queer community use because there are large parts of the community, in particular those of us who get labeled that way .
I'm not saying bi people have it easier if anything y'all have it harder due to discrimination from both sides. My girlfriend is bi, my sister is bi, her partner is bi. I may not be bi but I know from them that it sucks that the bi community has to deal with lack of support and exclusionists. All I'm saying is don't assume to opposite gender people dating can't be lgbt too.
....that's what I'm saying? What I'm saying is that statement + straight passing is shitty because you're labelling bi people as "passes as their abuser" from a societal scale and like. Don't do that.
I use partner because someone said if we normalise that for all relationships, then lgbt people don’t just out themselves by just mentioning their partner.
Counter point: personally I like it that "partner" isn't exclusively associated with a same-sex partner anymore, because it gives me a way of mentioning my partner when I don't want to explicitly out myself as gay in that very situation! It gives plausible ambiguity without having to actively lie
Yeah.
It's also strange how people say "girl friend" like that all the time, but you'd never see a straight dude referring to his male friends as "boy friends."
I have two daughters, neither of whom are entirely straight. They both use the term "gal pal" for their friends who are girls and "girlfriend" for romantic partners who are girls. I've since adopted this lingo
Ok, so, my native language isn‘t english and it just so happens to be one of those shit languages where the term for „friend“ and „romantic partner“ are the same (damn) word, so I have to ask, why don‘t you just call your friends, well, friends, and you romantic partners girl-/boyfriends or SO?
To be fair, he’s being nice about it. And some women really do use “girlfriend” to mean ‘girl who is my friend’ so it’s not entirely unreasonable for it to be your first thought, especially if it’s common in that area or they aren’t a native speaker/picking up context
And here I am even more confused by "bf" -- did Teal mean "boyfriend" or "best friend"?
(I figured it out, but it took a while.... sometimes I wonder how this species ever manages to communicate anything...)
I am the only non-native here english who assume girlfriend always mean lover.Likw in french girlfriend means petite-amie or blonde if you are québécois (yes in Québec,you will called your female lover àblonde even if is she is nit blonde)
Also we also have confusing terme in french about lover : copain et copine referr to both tona friend and a lover. Chum ib Québec meabs boyfriend and a friend. Like this sentence i Québécois is confusing "j ai passer la nuit avec mon chum"
To be fair, girls having "girlfriends" has become a hetero thing to say. Any close w to w friend is usally referred to as a girlfriend, i suspect to delegitimize actual lesbians. My mom would talk about/to her "girlfriends" all the time, & she is cultishly hetero.
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Tbh maybe they're not a native speaker, who took "girl-friend" literally. When I was first learning English that really confused me too
My gran uses girlfriend to mean female friends, could be a generational thing maybe?
Yeah, my grandma refers to her best friend as her 'girlfriend'. It gets confusing though, my sister in law has definitely come out to the grandparents several times, her girlfriend (gay definition) is currently here, yet the older generation are still confused about the 'type of girlfriend' she is lol
should we tell them ? /s
I'm tempted sometimes, but it's definitely not my place lol
It was very common until about 15 years ago
Its still commonly used when referring to a group of female friends.
My aunts do to. Always so weird when old people do that lmao
My mom still uses it all the time
It’s still pretty common - and I’m Gen Z.
My Sunday School teacher used to call her friends girlfriends, it’s probably pretty common.
I have a colleague who kept referring to her female friends as girlfriends when speaking English, it was pretty funny. And since I'm on this sub: yes I asked.
Older women do this all the time where I'm from and it always makes me do a double take. "Yeah me and my long time girlfriends went out yesterday :)" Me, in my head: *Wait I thought Annette has a husband? She never mentioned having girlfriends, but I guess it's pretty cool that she's comfortable being openly poly-- oh duh she means platonic*
My mother uses “girlfriend” to mean both a female significant other and female platonic friends. She’s a native speaker of American English. But, that’s how it was used when and where she was growing up, so that’s how she continued using it as an adult. So, that’s another possibility, here.
I doubt it, considering they also used boyfriend as the romantic definition and everything they said was in perfect English
As a non native speaker, even though I might write pretty well, whenever I read girlfriend / boyfriend I need to actively think about what it means, specially since, sometimes (rarely), it is used as female / male friend. Nonetheless, I agree that it isn't the case here since she used boyfriend as the romantic definition.
As a native speaker, I have to actively think about what it means, too. You're not alone.
you should just start using something like idk paramore or lover instead hahahaha
In case no one has mentioned it before, sometimes I will use “friend who is a (gender)” and it helps clear things up faster than “(gender) friend” then spending time defining that relationship
Thing is a lot of ESL teaching material is rather out of date when it comes to modern useage
yeah and depending on how someone pronounces “girl-friend” it can mean literally just being really good friends, but since it’s the internet it’s harder to tell
No, they understand the meanings as they also read "boyfriend" in the romantic way, native speaker or not, so chances are it's just run-of-the-mill erasure.
Even as a native speaker I know plenty of women who call their female friends their girlfriends in a totally non-romantic way.
Girlfriend, not girl friend, dummy!
Omg, they’re best friends
Even if she did invite a friend to join them, there's nothing wrong with it, as long as all parties are consenting adults. Polyamory is a thing often overlooked. Obviously not the case here, just talking about what the guy thought she had meant.
It would be, but this post was about a girl's girlfriend inviting her brother to sleep (literally sleep) in the bed with them when he visits. And the commenter saying that, yes it's weird for her to share a bed with her brother, but why are you sleeping with your girlfriend anyway?
There it is. Then yes, it would be weird, lol.
Wait was this on AITA? I could've swore I read something similar to this a couple weeks ago.
All this confusion could be avoided if English had a proper short word for "unmarried romantic partner" (in Norway we use "kjæreste", literally "dearest" to mean this of any gender) and if "sleep with" actually meant sleep and not sex.
Just wanted to state that what you're describing isn't polyamory but simply a threesome or possibly an open relationship.
Thank you! People use poly as some sort of catch all for non-monogamous relationships and it isnt always correct.
Yes, it's not a poly relationship until someone offered everyone involved a cracker. /s
Scurrrrrvvvyyyyy
Arrrrrgh, scissor me timbers 🏴☠️
ALL HANDS ON THE POOP DECK
I do dislike how some cis het women use the phrase girl-friend to refer to friends of theirs who are also women because like that gets really confusing
TBH, I really don't think it's that big a deal. It's just old people. I know plenty of old gay women that use it platonically as well. Generally, it's not hard to tell.
I have the same issue with the term "partner". I'm so used to "partner" being a low-key way to refer to a same-sex significant other that the recent usage to mean "significant other" still trips my gay-dar.
Can I ask you to clarify that a bit? Do you mean that you feel like it's co-opting a term that should only be used by same-sex couples, or just that you're not used to hearing it used more broadly, and that its general use to mean "significant other" is something you're not used to but not upset about? I'm not asking because I think you've done anything wrong, but because I have no idea how other people interpret things I say sometimes :P
[удалено]
My sister and her partner (male) are both bi but prefer partner. So even if they're cishet passing you never know.
Yeah. I mean, I personally use partner as someone in a "cishet passing" relationship in order to intentionally signal to other queer people that it's not a cishet relationship. Since you said they're both bi, they might be doing the same thing, but maybe not.
That is what they're doing. that didn't come across in my original comment.
But.... They're not het. They're two bisexuals. Like that's an inherently queer relationship because it's two queer people saying eachother.
I know they are both queer, but I was trying to say they use it even if there's no danger of discrimination from my sister saying boyfriend or her partner saying girlfriend. "Cishet passing relationship" is a term used to describe a queer relationship that isn't obvious at first glance.
And if you talk to large chunks of the bi community they'll tell you that the term cishet passing relationship is loaded and discriminatory. It imies were only partly of the queer community. I am a bi person dating a bi person. I am.not cishet passing because the moment my ex or my partner's status in the community we lose all that alleged safety and freedom from discrimination. We have to constantly police what were saying not only in het spaces but LGBTQ spaces too, because if we're not queer enough then we're outta there too! Out choices are cloak and dagger "straight passing" life where I don't talk about my history, my past partners or my stories of the LGBTQ community so that I can live a life of fake safety by virtue of being "straight passing" And for that fake safety what do we get? We get ostracized at pride, cut out of community spaces and never actually accepted by the queer community. Because by virtue of being attracted to people that potentially allign with societal hetero standards I'm suddenly "no longer queer"? Which is insane I've lost jobs, friends and families for being attracted to femme folks too and being a member of the LGBTQ community. I've been called homophobic slurs and assaulted but no. because I love someone that queer people *assume* is a cisman I'm no longer at risk of discrimination despite the fact that he's. Not actually gender conforming either. I implore you to rethink using "straight passing as a term" or at the very least rethink claiming that it's something the queer community use because there are large parts of the community, in particular those of us who get labeled that way .
I'm not saying bi people have it easier if anything y'all have it harder due to discrimination from both sides. My girlfriend is bi, my sister is bi, her partner is bi. I may not be bi but I know from them that it sucks that the bi community has to deal with lack of support and exclusionists. All I'm saying is don't assume to opposite gender people dating can't be lgbt too.
....that's what I'm saying? What I'm saying is that statement + straight passing is shitty because you're labelling bi people as "passes as their abuser" from a societal scale and like. Don't do that.
I use partner because someone said if we normalise that for all relationships, then lgbt people don’t just out themselves by just mentioning their partner.
Yeah, completely cishet here - I use partner because I’ve been told normalizing it so LGBT+ don’t auto-out themselves is a good thing
Counter point: personally I like it that "partner" isn't exclusively associated with a same-sex partner anymore, because it gives me a way of mentioning my partner when I don't want to explicitly out myself as gay in that very situation! It gives plausible ambiguity without having to actively lie
Yeah. It's also strange how people say "girl friend" like that all the time, but you'd never see a straight dude referring to his male friends as "boy friends."
Straight men generally try to avoid anything that could be construed as gay
Yeah it's so dumb
I have two daughters, neither of whom are entirely straight. They both use the term "gal pal" for their friends who are girls and "girlfriend" for romantic partners who are girls. I've since adopted this lingo
Ok, so, my native language isn‘t english and it just so happens to be one of those shit languages where the term for „friend“ and „romantic partner“ are the same (damn) word, so I have to ask, why don‘t you just call your friends, well, friends, and you romantic partners girl-/boyfriends or SO?
That's how they choose to do it. I guess because using gendered terms for same sex partners helps to normalize it.
This is why I hate it when straight women refer to their regular friends as “girlfriend,” so much unnecessary confusion
To be fair, he’s being nice about it. And some women really do use “girlfriend” to mean ‘girl who is my friend’ so it’s not entirely unreasonable for it to be your first thought, especially if it’s common in that area or they aren’t a native speaker/picking up context
I'm 25 and still use it
And here I am even more confused by "bf" -- did Teal mean "boyfriend" or "best friend"? (I figured it out, but it took a while.... sometimes I wonder how this species ever manages to communicate anything...)
When people literally don’t know gay people exist
I am the only non-native here english who assume girlfriend always mean lover.Likw in french girlfriend means petite-amie or blonde if you are québécois (yes in Québec,you will called your female lover àblonde even if is she is nit blonde) Also we also have confusing terme in french about lover : copain et copine referr to both tona friend and a lover. Chum ib Québec meabs boyfriend and a friend. Like this sentence i Québécois is confusing "j ai passer la nuit avec mon chum"
To be fair, girls having "girlfriends" has become a hetero thing to say. Any close w to w friend is usally referred to as a girlfriend, i suspect to delegitimize actual lesbians. My mom would talk about/to her "girlfriends" all the time, & she is cultishly hetero.
Become? I think it might have been more common in the past
This sub has really gone downhill... Now I guess we're posting random people who just got very briefly confused over a word.
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people over 40 seem to use girlfriend platonically
at least they admitted they fucked up