Drawing 24 and Relationship Terminology

[tealin]

I might have posted this one before, but when I uploaded it to Photobucket, it didn't give it a different filename, so bombs away!

Heeheehee.

On a slightly related note: I have been a stranger to the dating scene for most of my life, but thought I'd learned the basics in high school where I was designated counselor for all my friends and their woeful dramas. However, I have recently discovered that the world of human relationships is even more fraught and imbued with baffling subtext than I'd feared, and even the supposedly harmless world of terminology has layers and layers of hidden meanings. I had thought that any couple who were dating were 'boyfriend and girlfriend' but I now learn that only applies to a serious, committed relationship, one level down from engagement. It's become impossible to talk about anyone's relationship to anyone else because I never know what to call them, for fear of misrepresenting their status and starting who knows what. So I ask you, oh knowledgeable internet, what terms to use when defining the following sorts of couples. Both verbs, for defining their state, and nouns defining one or the other member of the party (to replace 'girl/boyfriend'), are welcome. Smart-aleck answers from the religious right are not helpful.

1. Just starting to go out but not serious yet, sort of testing the water

2. Have been together for a few months but have not declared any sort of committment

3. Testing the water but also having sex

4. Long-term non-committed but having sex*

5. Long-term committed but not having sex

*and I don't mean 'f—buddies,' I need a term that can be used in polite company if that's possible

Comments

[blahblahcakes64.livejournal.com]

I have the SAME problem. Seriously. These are the answers I seem to find most common, even if I might designate them differently:

1. Just starting to go out but not serious yet, sort of testing the water---> "TALKING"--basically casual dating and making out.

2. Have been together for a few months but have not declared any sort of commitment---> "DATING"

3. Testing the water but also having sex ---> "HOOKING UP".

4. Long-term non-committed but having sex ---> Um, who does this? Okay. Hrm. I'd say 'hooking up', but just clarify that it's a...frequent...thing? Eesh.

5. Long-term committed but not having sex ---> "TOGETHER" or "GOING OUT".

Hope that was helpful! :)

[virusq.livejournal.com]

I would generally refer to any of those as "significant other," "your boy" or "your girl."

Some people seem inseparable, but do not have any romantic chemistry they want to own up to. Those would be "other halves."

I would also refer to 2 and 5 as "The other voice in their head." They communicate and relate as if they are together, but don't want to be seen as together.

...But, honestly? I'd just call them boyfriend/girlfriend until the parties in question correct you. Obviously they're sending the wrong signals and need to clarify their relationship.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

I have been explicitly informed that boyfriend/girlfriend is, in broader youth culture as a whole, only ever used to describe a serious relationship. Maybe it's a California thing?

I like that 'his girl/her boy' thing, how delightfully 1940s. I think I shall use that from now on. :)

[noodledaddy.livejournal.com]

Being of the wrong generation, I only know one for sure:

5. Long-term committed but not having sex ---> "PARENTS".

[frodobaggins252.livejournal.com]

**Sporfle**

So true...so true...

Good luck probing these waters!

[lostieborden.livejournal.com]

4. "FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS"

Not something I've had much experience with myself (I swear!), but my best friend is in a super-long-term "relationship" along those lines. Honestly, eventually you stop referring to it at all, because everyone already knows what you're talking about and it gets too awkward.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

So what would you call either partner in this relationship? A 'beneficiary'?

[mauraplaid.livejournal.com]

1. Just starting to go out but not serious yet, sort of testing the water -> "not-boyfriend" or "not-girlfriend," definitely a term I learned from Buffy the Vampire Slayer

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

Can't say no to Joss Whedon ... :)

[bonnieslasher.livejournal.com]

I'm clueless too, as many of my friends seem to be. Everyone's operating with different ideas of what dating is and what boyfriends/girlfriends are. Then there's the drama when one of them assumes something the other has no idea about, and I want to scream at them all to just be clear with their intentions regardless of labels.

Then I find myself happy to be out of the dating pool :P

[raddishh.livejournal.com]

Personally, I think "Seeing each other" could apply for any of those except 1 in most cases.

Can you tell that I like to simplify everything?

[rakkenfloofer.livejournal.com]

Love her left hand.

[ks-claw.livejournal.com]

about the f-buddies.. Some like to call it "friends with benefits"

[wicked-vasquez.livejournal.com]

1. boy-thing, girl-thing
2. boyfriend, girlfriend
3.
4. Friends with benefits.
5. partners

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

4. I'm leaning towards calling either party a 'beneficiary' but would that be too snide to use on someone you're actually friends with?

[spence137.livejournal.com]

For anything that isn't an explicit boy/girlfriend situation, I just stick to "that girl/guy you've been seeing."

I.E. "How are things with that guy you've been seeing?" OR "Oh, I just saw that girl you've been seeing recently. Did she take you out to lunch?"

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

Aaargh, so many syllables! :)

[anathelen.livejournal.com]

Here on the uptight, conservative ol' East Coast boyfriend/girlfriend can still apply to all of those, at least for people in their mid-early twenties. The younger or more technologically obsessed, who I hear worry a good deal over whether or not they're 'facebook official', probably have finer distinctions, but in my circle of friends we'd call the above pairings simply 'dating', or, if we want to be more vague, 'seeing each other.'

California is weird. Hooray for bitter winds, long winters, tiny states, and the Puritan legacy.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

Haha, sometimes I think I'm an East-Coaster who's lived my entire life on the West Coast ....

[jolly-kraken.livejournal.com]

Criminy, I'm only 18 and I have the exact same problem. I don't see what's wrong with saying "boyfriend/girlfriend" or "significant other" either, or when that started to mean "soon to be engaged." o___o" I'm learning some interesting new things here. XD

Among my group of fellow teenagers, I really only hear "boyfriend/girlfriend." When a relationship is starting it's usually "the guy/girl you're interested in/have a crush on/are stalking," until the person corrects you with whatever the correct term is.

I've heard the other phrases from the skankbags I refuse to associate with, so I'm not sure exactly what they mean by "this guy I'm seeing now." I presume that to mean "this guy I'm having sex with now," but I don't know for sure. *rolls eyes* Kids these days.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

or when that started to mean "soon to be engaged."

It doesn't necessarily indicate inevitable engagement – in fact I hear it most confidently used in reference to couples who probably never plan on getting married but basically are, already, without the paperwork (living together, etc). Perhaps I should go edit that to take out the implication of a timeline...

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one out of the loop, and that someone actually in a youthful peer group is similarly confused. I'm used to being out of touch with popular culture but I had thought this was more or less straightforward...

[pandoras-chaos.livejournal.com]

1. seeing each other, the boy she's seeing/the girl she's seeing
2. dating, his/her date for the evening
3. still dating, though it gets sketchy on that
4. well, fuck-buddies is the preferred term, but 'friends with benefits' works as well, as does 'seeing each other' if in polite company that wouldn't particularly care for the innuendo
5. married.

[brendanm720.livejournal.com]

I usually just throw all caution to the wind and go for Girlfriend and Boyfriend regardless of what constitutes their relationship -- save #1, when it's too new to really classify. Three dates does not a relationship make.

(I do classify "Testing the waters but also making with the nookie" as boyfriend/girlfriend, because they seem to know each other well enough to be classified as such.)

So:

2, 3, 5, 6*... Boyfriend/Girlfriend.

4**... Friends with Benefits

1... Seeing? Dating? Yeah, I've got nothing.







*6) Long-term committed and having sex
** Could also be termed "Boyfriend/Girlfriend" depending upon the situation.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

6) Yeah, that's the only one I was sure about anymore.

[tony-cliff.livejournal.com]

Poope, and I thought Jane Austen was confusing!

I'm fairly certain at least one of those items -- perhaps 3, perhaps 4 -- is classified as a "sandwichocracy". (http://www.qwantz.com/comics/comic2-1460.png)

It's always seemed to me that a good practise is to avoid classifications (though, until today, I had never heard of a "sandwichocracy"). But then, I've always tried to avoid talking about other peoples' relationships. To be honest, I can think of less recommendable life strategies.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

Heeheehee, that's a good comic. :D

I usually run screaming from the room whenever relationships come up but I've been running into problems when referring to people in conversation ... X's girlfriend is a lot easier to say than X's undefined life partner but if X is in the room and resents the label, or if the people I'm talking to were under the impression that X's relationship was of a different calibre, or who knows what, that leads to problems. And if there's anything I hate more than talking about relationships it's relationship-related problems. Also I am a sucker for clarity, and I don't like using a general term when the people I'm trying to communicate with have much more specialized jargon.

[lunylucy.livejournal.com]

I'm no help as I also used to think that "boyfriend/girlfriend" applied to anyone dating. But cheers, didn't realize you were in Cali. And apparently next door to me, judging by your profile :D

Does the name of a long-term committed relationship really change depending on whether the couple is having sex or not? I'd think the level of the relationship would be the same, and premarital sex is more of a personal choice within the relationship.

[tania.livejournal.com]

I never saw boyfriend/girlfriend as that serious. I'm Australian, maybe it's a cultural difference? From "least serious" to "most serious" I would rank relationships as:

1. "That guy you're dating"
2. "Your boyfriend"
3. "Your partner"
4. "Your fiancee"
4. "Your husband"

...whereby 'partner' is a defacto relationship - so, dating, having sex and living together. In my view, boyfriend/girlfriend is dating, having sex but not yet living together.

At the same time, I can see boyfriend/girlfriend being used to refer to any one of numbers 1-3.

Not sure what you'd call a serious committed couple who weren't having sex. ("Christian"? Haha...) You don't see much of that out here, we're a pretty secular nation.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

It's pretty much the same out here – people seem not to consider it a 'real' relationship if there isn't any nookie involved. :P And having known a few Christians in my time, for all that they talk a good game I don't think the actual statistics are all that different. I can think of several rational reasons to hold off besides 'the church says so' but I appear to be the only one...

'Partner' is usually used in much the same way here, too, as far as I know, though (perhaps this is just me) it tends to have the connotation of homosexuality – because same-sex marriage is still illegal, that's really the best alternative term available to someone who's in a more permanent relationship than boy/girlfriend.

[ardys-the-ghoul.livejournal.com]

I'm probably as much in the dark about this as you are. I refer to this dude I went out with once or twice as my "ex-boyfriend," although we were only "together" so to speak for about a month and never slept together.

The only thing I know for sure is that my brother has a "fiancee," because they are in fact engaged. He already bought the wedding ring, even though they want to wait until they're both finished with college to get married, and she wants to be an orthodontist (which takes something like ten years), so it's going to be awhile before they tie the knot.

Considering the fact that I consider myself asexual and am now committed to remaining single, and I avoid any kind of physical contact like the plague, I will probably stay in the dark about all that stuff.

[adalanne.livejournal.com]

For 2-5, it depends on who I'm talking to. If I'm talking to the person, it's "the boy/girl." If I'm talking to family or a friend about a mutual friend, it's "her/his girl/boy", with the possible addition of "toy" if we're being playful. If I'm talking to just about anyone else, particularly if they don't know the person we're talking about, I just say they're "seeing someone/each other" and figure the specifics are none of their business.

Of course, all this is assuming that the friend hasn't told me how they label their relationship. If they use "boyfriend/girlfriend" or "dating" or "friend with benefit/benny," then that's what I use. I think that only the people involved get to really define their relationship, the same way it's up to an individual as to how they define, say, their race or sexuality.

[missuscarroll.livejournal.com]

No idea whatsoever. But I can confidently say that I love the term "going out" because it's so victorian and we don't even notice. "Goodness me are you going out? Taking the air? Being seen in public together? Heavens above~" and whatnot. It's like "post" in the internet sense. "Post a message" hahahah.

[starline.livejournal.com]

1. Talking

2. Dating

3. Dating

4. Dating

5. Companion

You can be dating, and not be in boyfriend/girlfriend. Its how people can go on several dates, with different people at the same time. If they don't say they are a couple, they aren't.

for serious commitments:
--Seriouso (couple that's been together forever 5+ yrs and aren't getting married for various reasons)
--Engaged
--Married
--Companion

[fani.livejournal.com]

fani
2009-03-25 05:00 am UTC (link)
Comment Posted Successfully
However, I have recently discovered that the world of human relationships is even more fraught and imbued with baffling subtext than I'd feared, and even the supposedly harmless world of terminology has layers and layers of hidden meanings. I had thought that any couple who were dating were 'boyfriend and girlfriend' but I now learn that only applies to a serious, committed relationship, one level down from engagement.

Hell, I have the same confusion and I'm engaged. O_o . I get to all these conversations with various friends and they started to go have dinners/movie on Saturdays or starting to have sex and I say, "Hey you guys are finally dating." And then somehow I just screwed it up. And I get lectured about, "Oh we're not that serious--we're just taking it slow." I'm confuuuurssesseeeddd

1. Just starting to go out but not serious yet, sort of testing the water
"friends"

2. Have been together for a few months but have not declared any sort of committment
Special friends

3. Testing the water but also having sex
"We're taking it slow."

4. Long-term non-committed but having sex*
I dunno...FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS?

5. Long-term committed but not having sex
Innocent dating--well, in my old country this is what you consider "dating".

My Opinion...

[mellifluous-ink.livejournal.com]

1. Courting

2. Courting/Sweethearts

3. Bad Decision ...Honestly I don't know.

4. It depends, really.

5. Significant Other/Beloved

[lisafeld.livejournal.com]

Far as I can tell, it's flexible depending on the people and circumstances. It gets used when both parties decide they're not dating on a trial basis anymore, regardless of whether they're having sex or whether they're monogamous about it. If you're still counting what date this is, you're generally still in the trial phase, IMO. If you feel comfortable calling the other person up and getting together with them without feeling like you need to plan EVERY detail of EVERY encounter to pass their tests, then you've passed into girl/boyfriend territory.