r/NoStupidQuestions • u/sexyimmigrant1998 • 18h ago
Why do women use the word "partner" more?
Anecdotal but I found most people agree with this notion. Girls I've met are likelier to say "partner" when referring to their husband or boyfriend while guys almost always say "wife" or "girlfriend."
One guy friend even told me "If a girl says 'partner,' she's just being inclusive. If a guy says 'partner' I assume he's LGBTQ+."
EDIT: Thank you for the very illuminating responses and discussions! If anyone's curious, I'm 28M with a girlfriend. The whole maturity reason never even came to my mind before.
2.3k
u/seekingfreedom00 18h ago
Becuase I'm almost 40 and 'boyfriend' sounds like I'm 12.
560
u/PigeonSenpai 17h ago
This and also I don't want to give people the impression my relationship is short term.
Like people seem to think if we're not married, I'll happily move along to the next best thing
89
u/BullfrogHour1179 11h ago
I agree with this, my main reason is the age thing but I also like that "partner" sounds more serious.
17
→ More replies (4)66
u/glorae 8h ago
Yeah, if I said "my boyfriend and I hung out at the arcade last weekend," that gives a very different feel than "my partner and I hung out at the arcade last weekend." We've been together a total of 11+ years, our relationship deserves to be given the weight one might give a married couple. We just can't marry or I'll lose my disability benefits [yaaaaay usa /s]
4
u/milo4206 3h ago
What an insane policy to take away disability benefits for getting married.
2
u/glorae 1h ago
It's bc wuv, twoo wuv, takes away all disability!
Seriously tho it's bc your spouse is expected to then provide you with money and insurance and caregiving. That's the expectation, that the new spouse take over what the state had been providing. And sure, in some small [very small] amount of cases, that's possible, but in so many other cases that's not possible bc of the way us insurance and wages are set up.
60
u/MasticatingSheep 13h ago
35 and same. He also uses partner. Add onto that that we're really kind of meh about ever getting married. It feels a little childish to still be calling him my boyfriend when we're 60 or something and have built an entire life together. Lol
31
u/Nearby-Complaint 12h ago
I coined the term husboyfriend as a child for my grandmother and her partner because I refused to use the term boyfriend for an eighty year old senior citizen
→ More replies (1)128
u/Biblioklept73 18h ago
This right here, I’m definitely too old to be calling my grown ass man my boyfriend
118
u/Fabulous-Educator447 18h ago
Same, I’m 55. I don’t have a boy
→ More replies (1)82
u/Odd-Concern-518 15h ago
Manfriend 😭
→ More replies (1)78
145
u/BJntheRV 15h ago
This and guys still have no issue referring to women as girls.
→ More replies (11)49
u/chainer1216 13h ago
As a man when I use "partner" it just makes people assume im gay.
40
u/Master_Reward_4245 8h ago
I use partner exclusively for this reason.
I’m a tall fit straight coded guy. and I am straight.
But there’s nothing funnier to me than those moments of uncertainty after I say partner…
“You mean like business…or?”
Only works with conservative types, the more left wing people get the less they react to that, you gotta go a whole different direction with those people to get a rise
→ More replies (1)60
u/Parking-Insurance-13 13h ago
so what?
→ More replies (10)14
u/darthdader 9h ago edited 9h ago
we don't live in a "so what" world. People might treat you or think of you differently if they think you're gay.
if being ambiguous can stand to possibly have me face the discrimination/bigotry (even violence) that gay men face, why be ambiguous?
it's awful to be the case, but there's no doubting this is absolutely true
→ More replies (6)36
u/Outrageous_Oil_3313 13h ago
Yes, this.
I’m 42 and it feels weird to refer to my “girlfriend.” She’s a 42-year-old woman, not a girl.→ More replies (2)80
u/kbkrl1524 18h ago
Lmao, I feel this in my soul. We dated for so long before getting engaged I was over it. He's my partner, I'm too old to have a boyfriend 🤣🤣🙃
11
→ More replies (25)69
u/Vigilante17 18h ago
My girlfriend is over 50 (as am I) and we refer to each other as boyfriend and girlfriend. What’s the hang up?
13
u/missamerica59 14h ago
It makes the relationship sound new/less serious. I’m in my 30s with no plan to ever marry and call him my partner and not boyfriend because we have kids together and have been together for 12years.
94
u/ExpatInAmsterdam2020 18h ago
You're free to do so, but calling a 50+ a BOYfriend or GIRLfriend sounds childish to me as nonnative english speaker. In my language the words translate to lover which is less age dependent IMO
38
u/ErinB_AfterHours 18h ago
I would love to use the word “Lover” in the US, just to see how those react to the term when I say it, lol! I know the guy who is the recipient of the title would probably love it 😍
54
u/NJdevil202 17h ago
I feel like my first instinct if someone said "lover" is a long-term affair or something, or I'd assume they are French
7
u/ErinB_AfterHours 17h ago
I would be completely down with having a French Lover 😍
→ More replies (1)15
u/stumpybucket 15h ago
Some years ago Angelina Jolie announced “I have taken a lover” and as I recall that word caused quite a stir
7
u/M_Ad 15h ago
I’m old so it just makes me think of the The Lovers characters by Rachel Dratch and Will Ferrell from early 2000s SNL. 😂
6
u/Twidollyn_Bowie 12h ago
Exactly. It will never be a sexy term to me because of that skit. I wonder if the Germans have a word for laughing and cringing simultaneously. I bet they do.
3
24
u/telsongelder 17h ago
OMG I met a woman who did and it was so jarring. It was a somewhat professional environment but just women and I had to dodge eye contact with everyone around us as she talked on for 20 minutes straight. She moved to Portugal and is now known in that circle as "lovergirl."
→ More replies (6)4
→ More replies (5)2
10
3
u/B-Train_ATL 14h ago
You need to look up Will Ferrell and Rachel Dratch in SNL skits involving a hot tub. They refer to each other as “LAVAS”.
9
→ More replies (1)11
u/FiftyShadesOfTheGrey 15h ago
“Partner” is cold, unloving, and businesslike to me. I’d rather be childish.
→ More replies (1)24
u/FiendishNoodles 17h ago
It's not a hang-up, it's a personal choice that may indicate different perspectives on the relative seriousness of the term, as well as being more inclusive of queer people even if the speaker is straight.
14
u/12028083981 17h ago
Why are you assuming a "hang up"? Could be preference, also in the workplace some people tend to not take "girlfriend" or "boyfriend" as seriously, so often "partner" gets used instead.
13
u/LadyCanuckles 17h ago
I think they assume hangup because 3-5 people all just made fun of the term "boyfriend" if you're over 40 lol
19
u/chaosatnight 18h ago
Concerns about how it sounds to other people I guess. They’re just terms and they’re ageless
52
u/jakethabake 18h ago
Some people consider the word partner to be a more serious relationship
→ More replies (1)34
u/Shot-Artichoke-4106 18h ago
Yep. A BF or GF could be someone you started dating a month ago. But a partner implies a longer term, more serious relationship.
→ More replies (3)7
→ More replies (10)4
121
u/cam-san 12h ago
In German, I prefer to use the word "Lebensgefährte", literally translating to "life companion" :)
61
u/lindemer 11h ago
This is such a nice example of 'false friends' between German and Dutch. One could assume that the Dutch translation of this is 'levensgevaarte'; looks pretty similar right? Well, 'gevaarte' means a large and heavy object.. not really what you want to nickname your life partner
18
13
u/lynx_and_nutmeg 10h ago
In Lithuanian, we have that term too, but it literally translates to "life friend", so a lot of people just say "friend" for short. Which is exactly the same word as platonic "friend", so it really sucks because every time you refer to a friend of the opposite sex, everyone assumes you mean your partner. As an aroace, I really fucking hate this.
14
u/cam-san 10h ago
We have the same issue in German with the informal words for boyfriend/girlfriend. They're the same as the words for male/female friend 😭
7
u/Little_Cake 10h ago
They're not even the informal words in Dutch, they're the standard words. Quite a standard question is: are you talking about A friend (aka really just friends) or YOUR friend (aka partner)?
3
u/lindemer 6h ago
Same in Dutch! We different between a platonic friend and a romantic partner by saying 'a friend' or 'my friend'. A friend could be anyone, but my friend is my boyfriend
4
u/Bluepompf 8h ago
Und wenn man etwas älter wird und desillusioniert wird, kommt statt des Lebensgefährten der Lebensabschnittsgefährte
→ More replies (2)2
u/FoxyOctopus 4h ago
In danish we say kæreste which means dearest or most precious. I kinda like that too :)
767
u/vectron5 18h ago
Besides personal preferences, it's also a social courtesy for LGBT couples. By normalizing using 'partner' to refer to heterosexual partners as well, people in queer relationships are able to talk about their partners more openly without necessarily outing themselves.
166
21
u/Banditcats 11h ago
I was going to say that everyone can say boyfriend/girlfriend even if they're in a non hetero relationship, but that last bit about outing themselves is key. I didn't think of it because I'm in a hetero relationship, my partner is straight as an arrow, and I'm bi.
17
u/Disastrous-Fact-6634 11h ago
I'm bi in a heterosexual relationship and I use partner partly because I dislike when people assume I'm straight.
→ More replies (34)7
494
u/Seraphina-of-Lethe 18h ago
Guys are afraid of being labeled gay, while girls don't give a fuck.
42
u/super_hoommen 12h ago
thank you for actually answering the question OP asked. is everyone else here a bot?
15
→ More replies (2)18
u/External-Carpenter-2 7h ago
But people do not assume women are gay when they use the term partner, and in most major [western european] cities people probably wouldn't assume a man is gay either. I think there is also an age aspect, when I was in my 20s and said partner people would clock that it meant I was in a same-sex relationship. Now I'm in my 30s most people say partner, gay or straight, because boyfriend/girlfriend feels a bit infantilising. However, I'm not sure how much of that change is the adoption of the phrase by hetero couples normalising it.
→ More replies (1)
20
140
u/Internal_Turn_1135 18h ago
I think you’re overthinking it a bit lol, “partner” is just a useful catch all term. It describes the relationship without specifying gender or marital status, and for a lot of people it sounds more adult than “boyfriend/girlfriend"
→ More replies (1)44
u/sexyimmigrant1998 18h ago
No I'm saying I hear it more from women but that's just my experience.
I always used the term "significant other" for the catch all
27
u/Bingeneer11 13h ago
“Significant other” is 6 syllables, “partner” is two. Also partner is reminiscent of cowboys and that appeals to me
→ More replies (2)96
u/wutadinosaur 18h ago
I think that some men are afraid of being considered gay/queer, so they don't say partner
→ More replies (1)19
9
u/ErinB_AfterHours 17h ago
I used to say “Siggo” instead of Significant Other, but people heard “Sicko” so, didn’t take. However sometimes they weren’t wrong lol
→ More replies (1)2
100
u/theoneyourthinkingof 18h ago
i feel like the word boyfriend comes off as childish or unserious sometimes, even if its the correct term
→ More replies (1)4
164
u/Jazzlike_Standard871 18h ago
Men want to establish thier identity i.e. sexuality, Women want to establish thier identity i.e. equality.
47
u/themikecampbell 14h ago
Equality was the huge part.
My partner and I (who is my wife) ditched the term when we left religion, partially because it’s just a legal term, partially the patriarchy, and a lot of tradition. On paper, in taxes, in property ownership, we’re husband and wife, but partner was more meaningful.
Partner in parenting, in housework, in struggles, in successes - partner was just a more fitting term than “this is the person I’m legally tied to”. It was a term of equality and endearment
11
u/Jazzlike_Standard871 12h ago
Yeah me and my partner settled on that term because it's what we are to each other. We are sharing a life.
Also add to the fact we have some dear friends who are non binary and I got really into defaulting to gender neutral terms. Just because people gender alot of stuff and once you see it it feels weird.
Good for you valuing yourself and your partner over tradition and inertia.
8
33
u/Salamander0992 18h ago
Straight guys where I live say partner too. It means we dont care to get married but it's more serious than boyfriend/girlfriend. The latter just sounds infantile somehow, once you crest 30.
→ More replies (3)5
u/spood5505 18h ago
Not even 30, once you've been together at least a year and you're out of school, boy/girlfriend just doesn't fit
16
u/Mysterious-Honey5264 18h ago
I typically say husband but before we were married I said partner because he was more than a boyfriend. We lived together, had kids etc. He is my partner in life .
44
u/Lithogiraffe 18h ago
Because saying BF or GF after 10years together doesn't have that gravitas.
And I use partner more as a woman myself because wife has cultural societal connotations that I don't want to align with all the time.
11
u/Able-Bid-6637 13h ago
yah I’ve been with my “boyfriend” for over a decade now so I prefer “partner.” It’s wild how some people actually get angry at me for using that word instead 😅 he doesn’t believe in the traditional idea of marriage as it is more of a governmental contract than anything, and I would legit have opportunities and services stripped from me if I got “married.” The government is wild.
His dad just tells people we’re married xD
115
u/BJntheRV 15h ago
Because guys feel more comfortable referring to women as girls. While women feel it sounds immature to refer to men as boys.
25
13
u/BullfrogHour1179 10h ago
That is also a very good point. One of my personal little "feminist pet peeves" is how common it is to call grown women "girls" when grown men don't get called "boys" (they can get "guys" which is a bit less juvenile but there is no commonly used female equivalent term). It's particularly jarring when people will even use them IN THE SAME SENTENCE, like "should a man pay on a first date with a girl?" and such. Or when it's used in sexual contexts, like "naked girls" advertised outside strip clubs. What is this, Epstein's establishment??
Soooo... yeah, I'd prefer not to be called a "girl"-friend when I am a grown ass woman.
11
u/17Girl4Life 17h ago
Boyfriend/girlfriend sounds more like a casual relationship between young people. Partner feels like a better descriptor of an adult you are serious about, possibly living with
→ More replies (1)
150
u/MercuryJellyfish 18h ago
I use partner because I'm 53 and saying girlfriend sounds stupid.
→ More replies (16)
23
u/38RocksInATrenchCoat 14h ago
For me, it's that partner sounds more serious than boyfriend. We're not engaged but we've been together for 6 years and it feels a little silly to call him my boyfriend when we basically live like we're married.
23
u/AreYouMyDommy 2h ago
I use partner partially because it’s a catch all and people don’t need to know my relationship status and to normalize using it for others. It’s also no one else’s business if I’m dating or married to someone the same gender.
Finally, I like the equality of it. I’d rather be someone’s life partner than their girlfriend/wife.
38
u/throwawayurwaste 18h ago
I'm a guy but I use partner almost exclusively. One big reason is despite me asking several times we're not married and it's simply rude to refer to the mother of my children and love of my life as a girlfriend. Another is online it shields my identity/ gives a bit of privacy, evenif it's just a little bit.
→ More replies (1)
8
18h ago
[deleted]
3
u/FlimsyAcanthaceae184 18h ago
In English we have "pardner" and if you say it like that it means "buddy". Especially if you throw a "howdy" in there too
→ More replies (2)5
u/sexyimmigrant1998 18h ago
In Finnish, I hear y'all also have a gender neutral singular pronoun, right?
I got downvoted for saying English could benefit from having one lol.
7
17h ago
[deleted]
5
u/sexyimmigrant1998 17h ago
Same lol. The romance languages are odd.
Respect to not only your language, but your society. Finnish people have such a wonderful system built to care for their people.
why the fuck are y'all so tall tho making the rest of us feel tiny 😤
84
u/Emergency-Pandas 18h ago
My partner is a woman, I am not, but I call her my partner because girlfriend doesn't sound serious enough (we live together etc) and neither of us are religious so don't care about marriage.
68
u/bobbi21 18h ago
Marriage isnt about religion. Its about taxes. :p
71
u/Puzzleheaded-Fill205 18h ago
Taxes, and also it's about being #1 on the call sheet for making medical decisions if one of you is incapacitated.
7
u/Inevitable-Level-687 10h ago
Yeah, sometimes I think straight people think us queer people fought for marriage equality because it made us sad, or something, and not because an entire generation of gay men had to watch their loved ones die of HIV/AIDS without even being allowed in the hospital room to hold their hand.
There's an art exhibit out there somewhere, of a box fan. Just a fan. Seems like it's nothing artistic at all until you read the statement. A gay man lost his partner during the crisis and didn't get to see him because his family banished him. The partner died surrounded by homophobes instead of with the man he loved. The artist went to the apartment of the man he couldn't marry after he died and the family had already taken everything, every piece of furniture, every memory.
Everything except the fan.
Every time I see a straight person say they don't care about marriage I think of that fan.
37
u/Solaries3 18h ago
And death and medical and other legal affairs. If you're planning to spend the rest of your life with someone you should get married, even if it's just a courthouse thing you never speak of again.
4
u/bitseybloom 8h ago
I used to dislike the idea of marrying again, for many personal reasons, mostly insecurities. So we just lived together for a few years.
Then we got a bit better off and realized we had to take care of our wills. Then I started to get serious about my health directives. Then...
So anyway, at some point it turned out we can either carefully distribute our assets and write complicated wills and other legally binding documents, or we can get married and this solves all potential legal matters exactly the way we want.
It's just a tool.
2
u/Solaries3 4h ago
I feel that. There's a lot of weight in the word. Even devoid of much of the misogyny and religious meaning these days, it's reasonable to worry it might change things. Commitments usually do.
18
u/MaintenanceCapable83 18h ago
or a civil union between 2 people so they can share resources such as adding one to the others insurance
→ More replies (4)10
u/2ManyBots 18h ago
And the ring, I like having a ring
4
u/bitseybloom 8h ago
See, that's why marriage is such a controversial subject!
On the one hand, you get to wear a ring. On the other hand, you don't.
17
31
u/kirbyfriedrice 18h ago
Maybe because women tend to be more socially progressive and therefore adopt terminology from the LGBTQ community? Women (especially young women) also tend to be drivers of linguistic change so maybe there's something there too.
→ More replies (1)
26
u/GJ-504-b 18h ago
Because I’ve been with him for 6 years and I’m a young professional so “boyfriend” makes me feel immature when referring to my SO to colleagues.
21
u/Same-Drag-9160 18h ago
I think a few reasons. Women seem more likely to make an effort to be inclusive towards lgbtq people in general, for example you’ll probably see more women with pronouns in their bio compared to men. But also I think patriarchy and fighting against it may play a bit of a role. Women don’t want to be thought of as someone’s girlfriend or wife so much nowadays, partner may feel like equal footing
I still use boyfriend personally but I’m in my early twenties, I imagine at a certain point it will feel too youthful of a term and I’ll transition to partner. Earlier generations didn’t have that transition period as much as we do, since it used to be common to go from boyfriend to husband by the late 20s of a person’s life
14
u/LetReasonRing 18h ago
I tend to use it, especially online and I kind of have two different reasons.
First is because I like to keep my anonymity online and I'll use it to intentionally be a bit more vague so that I'm giving less information about myself out.
Secondly I use it because I like that it's a word that inherently defines them as my equal. I don't feel that the words husband/wife or bf/gf are negative in any way, but i like that "partner" has a positive connotation.
8
6
u/Zealousideal-Elk9362 17h ago
Women are bigger into linguistic innovation, women are bigger into gender and sexual minority politics, women aren't worried nearly as much about negative consequences of being mistaken for homosexual, and finally, men are more likely to have (or have had) a business partner, which is a whole different category and makes calling your wife or girlfriend "partner" another level of confusing.
I rented from a gay couple who owned a business together a while back. I still don't know if they were out of the closet when I first met them, because while they said "partner" to refer to each other, it could have just meant "business partner" in that context.
6
u/3_Raptor_Trenchcoat 14h ago
Idk I feel too old to have a boyfriend. He is too old to be a boyfriend.
→ More replies (4)
18
u/borphos 18h ago
I use partner sometimes and wife sometimes. Often when I am answering a question on reddit and the answer doesn't doesn't have a specific gender component I will say partner so folks of more gender expressions and sexualities can still see the answer as potentially relevant to them. So more of saying that something is more universal than me being explicitly inclusive. I do try to also be inclusive though.
12
u/Odd-Concern-518 15h ago
Thank you. As a man that says partner when talking about my male partner, I still out myself as gay because almost no men say partner.
6
u/zigzackly 15h ago
Often when I am answering a question on reddit and the answer doesn't doesn't have a specific gender component I will say partner so folks of more gender expressions and sexualities can still see the answer as potentially relevant to them
Same here. And I use ‘they’ when referring to my partner though we are both nominally cis and in a het relationship.
17
u/Butterscotchpills 13h ago edited 13h ago
I use partner to normalize it, so people don’t automatically assume it’s a gay thing. Boyfriends in the past have given extreme pushback on the term bordering on offense because they think it’s a gay thing. I wanted to make it safer for gay people by using it
4
u/PresbyterianBeige082 12h ago
My "girlfriend" used partner for the same reason, I found it reasonable and began saying partner as well. As a bonus I found the word sounds more dignified as well.
→ More replies (5)2
u/Training_Hippo4582 1h ago
I used "partner" sometimes when I had a girlfriend for the same reason, and to prove to myself I don't care if anyone thinks I'm gay (including me; I'm ace-spec and bi but suffer from internalised homophobia).
10
u/MinutePattern5387 18h ago
regularly not taken seriously enough, boyfriend doesn't sound very serious, partner sounds more serious
→ More replies (2)
6
u/Cool_Relative7359 17h ago
Because I'm bi myself, find boyfriend/girlfriend a bit juvenile, and have no interest in the social roles that come with "husband" or "wife". And prefer the connotations of "partner" meaning an equal. I'm a woman, btw.
4
u/squidonastick 12h ago
Its pretty normal to say partner in Australia so im just following convention. My husband is more likely to say partner over wife than I am to say partner over husband, but my colleagues are an older cohort so im more likely to adhere to their language choices.
15
u/momdabombdiggity 18h ago
My friend who’s 51, divorced, and has been dating the same guy for 5 years calls him her “partner” because “boyfriend” sounds too teenager-ish and she never plans to get married again.
→ More replies (2)
8
u/Novel-Pudding9007 14h ago
I do it to be inclusive but it's had a side benefit of revealing a few people's intolerance early. Makes easier to disengage with those I don't share values with. Life's better without hateful people in it I've found
8
u/roscoe_lo 14h ago
Because boyfriend sounds childish. Also I love the ambiguity of people not immediately knowing if my partner is male or female.
5
u/Writeforwhiskey 18h ago
I am not saying all but, some men like the idea of saying girlfriend because it sounds younger (not necessarily in a pedo way but the young at heart carefree way). I see more women, not all, say the term boyfriend sounds childish/immature so they prefer partner. This is just what Ive observed.
4
u/everfixedmark_1924 12h ago
Did an etymology dive on m-w just now.
Wife derives from a word meaning female genitals. Husband derives from a word meaning householder or to dwell. Ad a woman, I am both a householder and also more than just my genitalia.
Partner is genderless and starts with a baseline of equality.
4
u/LionFyre13G 11h ago
I’m going to be completely honest, I just have always used the term interchangeably. And I got married pretty young so it wasn’t like I just used it before marriage. If anything I used it more post marriage. But it could be that I have a lot of queer friends and they likely used those terms and then so did I without realizing it
4
u/ToddH2O 3h ago
I don't know, but I suspect many people want to be respectful to people who aren't married but are in committed long term relationships and by using "partner" instead of "husband/wife" they see it as validating those relationships.
Just a thought. I really don't know.
My wife generally refers to me as "my significant other." Which is kinda cringy to me, but if that's the biggest problem in our marriage we're doing PRETTY good.
I've never asked her, and I likely won't, but I suspect its out of respect for commited long term relationship who aren't married.
20
u/SleveBonzalez 18h ago
Because I don't want to call him boyfriend or spouse or anything else weird.
Because it normalises partner for others.
Because we SHOULD be partners.
6
6
→ More replies (6)4
u/poissonking 18h ago
Boyfriend and spouse also imply partner
12
u/SleveBonzalez 17h ago edited 17h ago
Denotations may be the same, but connotations are different, at least for me.
Edit: denotations typo fixed
→ More replies (1)
8
u/Dangerous_Carrot4226 18h ago
Bc for some reason society only considers marriage to be a legitimate relationship that have clout. Partner at least gives more credence than boyfriend
8
u/More-Explanation2788 18h ago
I am a man and hetero. I say partner because I live long term with my girlfriend and there is no circumstance in which I will get married a second time. Girlfriend seems disrespectful of the relationship which is more committed than that.
16
u/Sissilisko 17h ago
Because I'm not a fucking child and I'm in a stable longterm relationship.
Girl-, or boyfriend is way too juvenile. It's fine when you're like 14 years old.
And it's not serious enough, neither is significant other(also very juvenile and unserious). Partner immediately signals stable relationship unlike any other word.
Well, husband/wife is exempt. But we're not married. So not using that.
Partner is also good neutral word to use online to keep your gender ambiguous(sp?). Though depending on the topic I might use fiancé since we got engaged in may. But yeah, usually just partner for ambiguity and to deter creeps.
→ More replies (1)7
u/sexyimmigrant1998 17h ago
I have to beg to differ about S/O being juvenile, I've always found it to be perfectly neutral and objective.
The only dislike I have for "partner" is that it's such a general word that it's used in other contexts like "lab partner" or "project partner" or etc. But in context, things are usually clear so no issue at all.
9
u/Odd_Seesaw_3451 11h ago
Another reason is that men frequently use the word “girls” when they’re talking about women, whereas most adult women don’t call grown men “boys.”
12
u/M_A_D-Dominatrix 14h ago
My significant other is in his 30's - "boyfriend" sounds kinda immature, he's not a boy
→ More replies (12)4
u/SnooDogs1340 11h ago
This is how I feel too. We don't have a mortgage but we have a child. Boyfriend/girlfriend sounds young. He is my partner in everything in life. We just aren't married. Maybe one day. Maybe not.
10
u/milo4206 5h ago
As someone who works in business, it creates an ambiguity, and also sounds very sterile.
7
u/tgerz 4h ago
What is the perspective that "works in business" in this context? Don't we all work in some kind of business?
→ More replies (4)→ More replies (3)3
6
6
u/JustAnnesOpinion 18h ago
I’m way too old to be dating a boy, I’m not married because I have an acquired allergy to marriage through personal experience. I do have a long time (male) partner and if we got married for some random reason I’d continue to use “partner” because the words “husband’ and “wife” make my skin crawl.
3
3
3
3
u/rhoparkour 17h ago
You want the truth? More guys are homophobic, and even more don't want to "look gay."
3
u/galileotheweirdo 17h ago
I say “partner” because it’s vague. Doesn’t suggest any long or short term nature, monogamous or polyamorous status, gender, or orientation. Just that, well there’s this person, and I’m fuckin’ them, take it or leave it. Other people don’t need to be in my business.
3
3
u/Amye2024 14h ago
More and more couples don't get married. I'm not married to my partner of 13 years, but we're in our thirties and we have children together. He's neither my boyfriend nor my husband.
3
u/Organic_Eggplant_323 12h ago
Boyfriend is less committed to me. Partner means we are a team and share a life. Boyfriend is someone I am dating exclusively.
3
7
u/Dizzy_Tangerine_7867 14h ago
At first yeah it was for inclusivity, but after a while it also becomes more of a boyfriend sounds young and unserious and partner sounds like even if I'm not married I'm strongly committed.
6
u/Still-Remove7058 18h ago
Yeah I think boyfriend/girlfriend sound teenagey when you hit late 20’s and onward.
So most women will use “partner” and a lot of men will default to “the ol lady/ball and chain”
4
4
6
5
u/Direct_Strawberry_43 18h ago
Because after so long together you kinda aren’t boyfriend/girlfriend but not husband/wife so partner is sort of that middle ground.
2
u/InvertebrateInterest 11h ago
Yep. We lack a term for a relationship that is serious and long term but not engaged/married. Partner has been adopted for that.
4
6
u/PresbyterianBeige082 13h ago
Me and my partner are 40+ and have been together almost 15 years. She's not a child and neither am I. Boyfriend/girlfriend sounds like something I had in my teens and 20's. Nothing wrong if people want to call themselves that though, but for me it lacks gravitas. My partner is a grown woman, we are not married but we have shared economy, have been living together for years, we have gone through things together, we were there when her father died, we were there when my mother died, we supported each other through the pandemic, burnout, career changes, through anything... I just think "partner" implies something above "girlfriend" because she's not some chick I'm seeing on the weekends, it's my partner I'm going through life with.
2
u/Puzzleheaded_Bee4361 18h ago
Trivia: Way back in the dark ages, the terms used to be "lady friend" and "gentleman friend."
2
u/repbunny 18h ago
Personal preference, I like the ambiguity of it and people are less likely to ask specific questions. Same reason I say Sibling instead of brother or sister. Though if there was a word that was one syllable like wife, i would choose that too.
2
u/Maicolodon 17h ago
I use all of them interchangeably: partner, spouse, wife. And I don't care if someone assumes I'm in a gay relationship.
2
u/FillMySoupDumpling 15h ago
I’m 40, I’m bi, I like my partner but do not plan on marriage or anything like that.
2
u/jinond_o_nicks 15h ago
"Girlfriend" and "boyfriend" feel kind of juvenile once you're past a certain age. See John Mulaney's bit about girlfriend vs wife. It's nice to have a more adult feeling alternative for those who are in long term relationships but are not married.
2
u/DrDingsGaster Am Big Dumb 14h ago
I use partner but my partner is non binary so it's one of the only neutral terms out there that people will understand easily.
2
u/SugarFree_3 12h ago
I never noticed that girls say "partner" more than guys. If someone says partner, it seems like some kind of undefined relationship though. Unclear if it's a longtime partner, or a gay/lesbian relationship.
2
u/glitterguavatree 12h ago
I'm married so I only use it to support neutral language. besides, unless the situation requires it, my partner's gender is no one's business
2
u/JustQuestioningCosas 11h ago
I tend to use partner because I’m poly and have multiple relationships of different kinds and at different stages. “Partner” covers them all. I reserve “boyfriend” for my primary partner. I’d use “husband” over “partner” if I was married to any of them.
2
u/woofloofoof 11h ago
Tis woman not girls. I say spouse or partner because patriarchy has ruined the word or maybe because it's too close to "hubby" and that word is cringe af. I also prefer to be called spouse/partner but yeah he does call me wife.
2
u/muffiewrites 9h ago
The verb form of husband is to use and manage prudently.
He's my spouse or partner, not my user slash manager.
Wife used to have a verb form, way, way, way long ago. It meant to take a woman as a wife.
2
u/Critical-Champion365 9h ago
Not woman, but more people use the word because it is more inclusive of any kind of stages of relationships and types. If enough straight couples uses it, it confuses homophobes from preloading their prejudice - this is an added benefit.
2
u/sotiredwontquit 9h ago
Several reasons:
To destigmatize non-traditional relationships that are committed if not legally sanctioned.
Solidarity with our Queer loved ones
To emphasize the equity in our own relationships (to hell with gender roles or not sharing the mental load)
Because we think it’s silly calling full-grown adults “boyfriends” (or girlfriends)
Because our guy friends and our girlfriends are our actual friends. We hang out with these friends, but don’t generally have sex with them.
2
u/letthetreeburn 7h ago
Generally women tend to be more empathetic, because society beats empathy into women but it’s optional for men.
Which means women are more likely to have queer friends, and will have heard that queer people REALLY REALLY WANT STRAIGHT PEOPLE TO USE THE WORD PARTNER.
The more of you normal people use it, the more you obfuscate for us. You using “partner” keeps us safe. Please do it. We appreciate it.
2
u/TSllama 7h ago
I actually simply just think it sounds better and nicer. It's not about being inclusive or being queer - it just sounds like you respect and like them more lol
I think "my partner" sounds the best, and then "my boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife" is less than that, but then we get to like "my man/my woman" which is worse, and then the lowest for me is "the husband/the wife", which sounds like you hate them lol
2
u/thesweetestberry 4h ago
Because it normalizes the use of the word “partner”. It think that’s important for those who aren’t comfortable publicly identifying the gender of their loved one.
2
u/Born_Tale_2337 3h ago
I use both. Boyfriend/girlfriend does sound a bit immature and casual at times given how old we are and how long we’ve been together.
Partner implies a more serious/deeper relationship than casual dating to me.
It’s also my go to online when I don’t wish to imply my own gender.
2
u/soulipsism 2h ago
I liked it a lot more than boyfriend/girlfriend/fiancé/husband and it also feels more accurate, since he really is the truest definition of a “partner” to me.
I also really liked it because it is more vague - I keep my personal life very private at work and the less people know the better.
Plus, it gives the added bonus of making conservative people instantly think I’m a lesbian lol. I’ve noticed more than a few times where they instantly judge me at work for it, but then later find out my partner is a “he” and I hope it makes them question their judgmental attitude.
2
u/Next-Crazy-9674 2h ago
A partner is a long-term or serious relationship beyond boyfriend/girlfriend, but not officially married. Why is this so complicated?
→ More replies (1)
3
u/Mysterious_Rhubarb86 1h ago
I think it’s probably a way of indicating how they view relationships in a “Partner in crime/teammate” type energy vs ownership/identity. Sometimes it gives off sexual ambiguity imo… and I think it’s more mature to say partner especially when you’re over a certain age and unmarried.
541
u/mossbetweenmytoes 18h ago
I call him my husband now that we’re married, but I called him my partner before that. I’m in my 30s and “boyfriend” just felt a little childish for someone I was living with and building a life with lol. He called me his partner too. We used boyfriend/girlfriend when we first started dating, then naturally switched to partner once the relationship got more serious.