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How do you refer to your 'Significant Other'?

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20:17 / 28.07.05

I once dated a lad who made the mistake of calling me his sex kitten once, while drunk. I spent the rest of our 6-month relationship introducing him as my fuck puppy, much to his chagrin.

"Partner" is the term I usually use, when one is needed. I like the gender-neutrality, perhaps for the same reason I plan on using the term "Ms" for the duration, regardless of marriage/singledom (I'm with Psych on challenging the shame implication). Plus, partnership implies an equality that I think balances out the possessiveness nicely - he might be *mine*, but we're still in it together.

22:01 / 28.07.05

I'm pretty happy with the term boyfriend, which suits his youth and accurately sketches our relationship (seeing only each other, living apart, no kids or property in common), though I will introduce him as 'Babyface Chan' when I want to terrify people.

Sean the frumious Bandersnatch

23:59 / 28.07.05

Penis Sheath

Tryphena Absent

00:22 / 29.07.05

I think the difficulty lies after boyfriend/girlfriend. You can easily refer to someone you see regularly (whether that's once a month or every other day) but don't live with as your boyfriend/girlfriend. As soon as you live with them (or say live apart but share a cat) they become your partner, which as already stated in this thread is a very ambiguous word for both gender and other reasons. It can suggest living with someone for a month to years with a child, shared mortgage and completely pooled resources. The word doesn't have the convenience and weight of a word like husband or wife, which is presumably why your girlfriend uses fiancee or husband Lekvar. Using girl/boyfriend can presume a temporary state or one that hasn't become permanent yet, it doesn't hold the connotations of partner but partner doesn't hold the connotations of wife and life partner just seems so flaky. Less a statement and more a convenient but loose term.

Significant other, other half and a lot of other terms also lack the weight that you might want to apply to someone who is so present in your life. The suggestions behind those terms are also a bit odd, I think other half has been covered and significant other almost seems alienating. It's a term that suggests there isn't another term or word to use and there's also a pretension there. It's a bit yuppie, taking someone's own identity away over a glass of chardonnay.

I've kind of abandoned all of these terms, I just try not to use them at all and if people ask I just say "we live together" and if it's forthcoming "we've been together for..." and introduce my partner by his name. It seems like an infringement to locate someone as part of you or your life rather than their own.

Goodness Gracious Meme

01:38 / 29.07.05

Thanks SW, this is something I'm very interested/concerned with at the moment.

I've tried a multitude of terms over my relationship history, and often go for a mix of a bunch of things.

At the moment, I can imagine using: boyfriend, girlfriend, lover, play partner(or play-specific terms), partner. (Motivations often driven by context, as Deva/Warewulf describe) I'm occasionally using 'primary partner' these days to describe my, er, primary partner, but it feels odd to me. I've also used Main Boy, which I like in some ways, not in others.

This is partly a newness thing. My (comfort with) terms is evolving and altering along with my way of doing relationships.* (At this point, I'd say I'm (learner)poly and non-monogamous) But partly, it just feels... odd. A bit clinical, as people have noted about about 'partner'.

Add 'primary' and I feel like I have to start making graphs.**

So, being a foodie, I've come up with 'main dish' and 'side dish' to describe the people in my life. It works for me.

I have a big spiel as to why, but it's not that interesting to many people)

Oh, and Kat, I love that you say 'my associate'. Makes me think of cult 60s tv (The Saint, The Avengers etc) and I imagine you, modded up, racing through Swinging London having dapper adventures.

What do people call their partners who are not male or female if they want to get the gender of their SO across?

*though as long as I can remember, I've been okay with 'partner', ie way back when I was exclusively describing male SO's, it fitted best. I think I was always keen to allow for gender ambiguity.

** which I'm not up for. Venn diagrams, however...

Goodness Gracious Meme

01:45 / 29.07.05

oh, and was having this conversation with my [insert term here] the other day, and she and I have settled on 'bird', for now.

Oh, also to say that my 'main dish'/'side dish' thing also works for me in that it allows me to comfortably describe the variety of close relationships I have, whether sexual/romantic or not, which is something I often find difficult about terms for an 'SO'.

Often they feel to me as though they carry an overriding/erasing of the other important personal connections in my life.

02:03 / 29.07.05

"Partner" just always sounds like a business partner to me. Maybe because I work in the construction industry where most people do have a [business] partner so that's usually what it means when I hear it.

And "lover"... while it may be literally accurate, it just sounds silly to me, no offense to those who use it. I can't help thinking of that SNL sketch with the New Agey couple who constantly call each other "LOVAH" and dry hump in front of their dinner guests etc.

02:20 / 29.07.05

I have trouble with "my husband,' despite being legally mated-for-life--both the aforementioned "my" part, and some residual issues with the institution of marriage that I should have thought of before the fact (yeah yeah--I was young, foolish...), despite still being crazy about the bloke.

So sometimes I change it to "my buzzhand," which amuses me because it's such a female fantasy...a guy with a vibrating hand! how cool would that be?!

02:26 / 29.07.05

Partner.

Partner.

Hmm.

I like the "dance" connotations.

No, no, the only way I could say that and enjoy it is to make it sound like a cowboy. But the only way I've heard other people use it makes it sound like a lawyer.

"Lover" makes me blush. This is not an altogether bad thing. I still like "big daddy" best of all, though. It's the Tennessee Williams thing.

04:24 / 29.07.05

I refer to her as the wife - just trying to get used to the idea that she is actually going to be the wife in nine months time I guess. A friend calls her the chosen one which I quite like.

04:30 / 29.07.05

Goody.

As in "Yon Goody Monk, the miller's daughter, betrothed to Young Monk of the Stottleborough Monks."

*

06:18 / 29.07.05

What do people call their partners who are not male or female if they want to get the gender of their SO across?

I have been called my lover's "entitylove" and "personfriend," when my gender was less male than it now is. This confuses people, but in a beneficial way, I think.

lonely as a cloud...

07:13 / 29.07.05

I generally refer my gf as my gf when online, or just by name in meatspace. She calls me her fluff, since I am quite fluffy. Actually, she always calls me fluff, so much so that other friends occasionally call me fluff, too.

ONLY NICE THINGS

07:16 / 29.07.05

Having read this thread, I have change my terminology. I no longer use the term Peter Purves. I use the term Peter Duncan.

It seems... cleaner, somehow.

07:21 / 29.07.05

when we get married i'm going to force her to take my surname... i think Mrs. Simon-Groome sounds classy.

Ex

07:41 / 29.07.05

I like 'main dish' and 'side dish' because of the 1960s resonance: 'He's such a dish! Dreamy!'

I usually use 'partner' to confuse the gender, being in the same circs as Psych Safeling; whenever I'm within about three yards of said partner I'm probably default-straight, unless I have a particularly pithy slogan T-shirt, so I feel it adjusts the balance, or something.

I don't want to ruin someone's day with embarassment, though, so I don't correct people if they guess the 'wrong' pronoun; sometimes I have medium-length conversations with both of us using different pronouns, which is fun.

But I like 'associate' very much. I think I may swing towards 'companion' because it matches my expectations of a relationship more than 'other half', but more importantly, because of Dr Who.

lord nuneaton savage

07:59 / 29.07.05

Recently I've become very fond of "Lady". Not in an Alexander o' Neil "Laaaaaady" sense, but in a more refined, clipped British kinda way.

S'classy. Chicks dig it...

09:15 / 29.07.05

Hindermate or The Noise.

11:56 / 29.07.05

hand

12:19 / 29.07.05

I've always hated partner for its clinical, soulless sound - although 'partner in crime' has a better ring to it.

I usually use boyfriend because I like the romance of it, and it puts it out there immediately (the gay thing), but if we go on much longer, you never know...

I love 'my lover', preferably in a northern accent, like the fat lady atop the battlements in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.

Others I like: ball and chain, the man who stole my innocence (as in "may I introduce..."), pet cock, sugar daddy, current account.

12:39 / 29.07.05

One could call a male mate "balls and chain," I suppose...

12:44 / 29.07.05

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

12:58 / 29.07.05

Are you yanking my chain?

Goodness Gracious Meme

13:03 / 29.07.05

I have been called my lover's "entitylove" and "personfriend," when my gender was less male than it now is. This confuses people, but in a beneficial way, I think.

Yep, agree totally on this.

Ex, yep, I also really like the 'dreamboat' connotations, anyone I'm likely to describe with these terms is going to be someone I consider to be dishy, which is a word I love.

Goodness Gracious Meme

13:05 / 29.07.05

I usually use 'partner' to confuse the gender, being in the same circs as Psych Safeling; whenever I'm within about three yards of said partner I'm probably default-straight, unless I have a particularly pithy slogan T-shirt, so I feel it adjusts the balance, or something.

Thanks for this, Ex. Identifies something I've been groping at in this thread (and thanks sentimentity as well), which is that many my terms are definitely contingent on the genders performed by me and the person I'm describing.

semioticrobotic

13:18 / 29.07.05

Thanks for this thread; it comes at a time when my girlfriend and I have been wrestling with this same problem.

I like Nina's notion that words/referrences change when the living situation changes. But my girlfriend and I have been together more than four years and don't yet live together. We feel, though, that we're outgrowing the "boyfriend/girlfriend" thing. She has taken to calling me her "intended," since we've at least discussed marriage in broad, general terms and ideas.

That said, we also don't correct people who assume we're married and use words that identify us accordingly. It's fun to pretend, eh?

13:57 / 29.07.05

I too love the main-dish, side-dish approach. Dish is a lovely word for starters (ptp), and there’s loads of room for the right sort of nuance. You could have everything from an aperitif to petit fours. And it doesn’t say anything in particular about relative status. Who’s to say someone’s main course is more important to them than their pudding (or vice versa). You might enjoy your side salad and your sorbet equally. Good work, GGM.

That said, we also don't correct people who assume we're married and use words that identify us accordingly. It's fun to pretend, eh?

Sometimes, if someone I don’t know asks if I’m married, I find myself saying ‘Yes. Well, no, not technically, but, you know, yeah.’ in a stumbly, dumb-fuck sorta way. It’s another tricky area because of the potential dissonance between what these terms mean to me and what they’re understood to mean more generally (as per ‘partner’ above).
So if someone asks me if I’m married I find myself in a bit of a quandary. If I say yes, I feel like I’m pretending to be part of an institution I neither am nor want to be part of. If I say no, I feel like I’m saying I’m single/available. If I say ‘No, but I do have a girlfriend’, I feel like I’m saying that I’m not strictly available, but less attached than I would be if I were married. If you see what I mean.
Mindful of this, I try not to put other people in the same situation – but that’s not as straight-forward as it feels it ought to be either. Instead of saying, ‘Are you married?’, you can say ‘Are you single?’. That gives them the chance of saying ‘no’, without all the qualifications. But then I think that sounds creepy, as if I’m primarily asking after their availability rather than their Significant Other. Cringe.

Maybe I should start asking people if they’ve gone for a main dish or if they’ve chosen a couple of starters. Are they, perhaps, still on appetisers? Meme’s meme might have caught on, and it would make for a far more entertaining conversation anyway.

15:00 / 29.07.05

By the way...

the connotations of ownership that goes with the ‘my’ thing

A few people have mentioning this trouble with "my," but isn't that reading a bit too much into it, or perhaps infusing it with your conflicted feelings about monogamy? Do people struggle with the connotations of ownership in "my sister," "my friend," "my neighbor," "my boss?"

15:15 / 29.07.05

"My co-pilot" seems inextricably stuck in the 80s.

I always liked "right-hand man". If I'm seeing a woman even better really.

"My associate", though, that is class.

15:23 / 29.07.05

For what it’s worth, ibis, in my case the discomfort definitely has something to do with infusion I think. I doubt this is a reference you’ll know, but ‘my wife/girlfriend’ always sounds a little Papa Lazarou to me – ‘You’re my wife now’.

It’s not that I have a huge problem with the ‘my’ bit, but my consciousness of the slightly more tricky relationship between coupling and ownership turns up the volume on the possessive determiner somehow. Similarly, although you’re right in that I don’t flinch at referring to my boss as ‘my boss’, I feel less comfortable referring to an assistant as ‘my assistant’. Does that make any sense?

15:49 / 29.07.05

That said, we also don't correct people who assume we're married and use words that identify us accordingly. It's fun to pretend, eh?

Yesyesyes. Except, moreso. I remember really enjoying the fib, the collusion, when referring to someone as ‘my wife’ and being a ‘husband’ when it had been firmly established between us that actual, churchy, ring-exchanging marriage was *never* going to happen. It had a let’s pretend, fool the straights, really harmless teenagery rebelliousness about it. It seemed an even better joke because we didn’t wear rings. God, I can’t believe we found that so funny. And yet, there was something about just declaring the commitment without needing any of the other stuff, for as long as it lasted. It was like stealing something that totally wasn’t ours, that we knew we’d have to give back. Maaaan.

Tried ‘my old lady’ once upon a time, but that definitely didn’t take. Which is a shame, because ‘my old man’ has such a lovely sound to it. I’d have loved to have been one of those. Preferably Joni Mitchell’s.

And hey, there’s at least as much being owned as owning wrapped up in the ‘my’ thing. It’s kind of a swap-type deal, isn’t it?

(Oh, and the main dish/side dish thing rocks so hard)

16:00 / 29.07.05

Why stop at 'old man'? 'Daddy' has a nice ring, dontcha think?

16:12 / 29.07.05

As in, Oh you're a mean old Daddy/ But I like you fine ? S'okay.

16:43 / 29.07.05

Big Daddy. Just try it out for size.

I have to say, I'm liking the sound of "companion."

Bit like a James Bond villain.

17:17 / 29.07.05

Free Associations

Big Daddy.

Husband

Wife (click to read text)

Partner

Companion

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