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I agree with Robin ... partner applies right across the spectrum in UK, too.
'This is my boyfriend / girlfriend' is commonly heard ... but 'partner' is more often used if the couple are no longer young.

a4e4ka

Here, in Florida I've seen some forms/applications for the health care where there is a term "domestic partner". Applies to any couple of peole who live together as a family, whether they are gay or straight.

indigo

We have gay and lesbian friends and always hear the word partner
meaning a steady relationship.

Robindcr8l

I still like insignificant other the best! LOL

Dragon

Does that mean you're the signifacant one Robin? Hehehe.

solosater

It's a mess is what it is! I have not dated ever really and as my health is not great and I don't have a terrible lot of energy I really don't think I will any time soon but I still have to worry about this when referring to my friends, male, female, straight, gay, or otherwise!

One of my very best girlfriends is also the person I sometimes work with in jewelry, and so we sometimes will go to bead stores and shows and such together. In the artistic community homosexuality is sometimes worn as a badge of honor, sometimes even pretended for a profit but rarely if ever hidden!

My friend is really sensitive about it while I, having been raised around hairdressers and in salons from infancy, am not so much. I have called my female friends my girlfriends forever but this really upsets her as she thinks people will think we are more than just friends. So what to call her???

I’d go for sister but I’m as white as they come and she’s a rather exotic looking black woman and it wouldn’t wash. I feel like we are sisters and we do bicker but that is more than I want to go into with people I really don’t care about while I’m buying supplies. If I say partner there’s the business or domestic question and I think I would bungle that! I could just say my friend but quite frankly it doesn’t feel like the truth somehow.

She’s my girlfriend just like my other girlfriends.

I have many friends who are of the male persuasion. I would never call them boyfriends, as that would indicate more than just friendliness between us (I cannot say why it’s different, it just is;-). However, when I am telling someone about a conversation I had with “Jim” there is little doubt that Jim is a male and as I am an unattached female I must therefore be on the hunt! The question is always there, “Is he more than a friend???” Well, I’ve been at this a while and I generally do the whole preemptive strike thing with a “’he’s seeing a girlfriend of mine,” “’he’s married to ‘Jane’,” or a desperate “I’m close with his mother, sister, daughter…” I will most often go with “guy friend” if I have the time to catch myself, that seems to settle the issue, though as I’ve said I’m a single woman and so I MUST be desperate to find a man. Some people cannot be dissuaded from thinking “Jim” is at least a prospect for me.

I’m frustrated that I’m made to feel I must explain my connections with people of any sex and I know that to a large extent it’s my problem and not that of society. I should not care what people think as they are assuming and my friends and I are all very clear where we stand. Quite frankly for myself, I would prefer people mistakenly saw me as homosexual than to think that I’m after every single male of my acquaintance; there is nothing more off-putting to me than a desperately single woman, I shudder just thinking it! However, I certainly don’t want my girlfriends (really it’s just the one) to feel that I’m crossing their boundaries. I find it sad that we are made to define every relationship and in fact I think I couldn’t successfully define any of my relationships anyway.

Am I alone in this?

Any thoughts? Suggestions? Jokes at my expense? Anything at all?

polenta

oh, my God.... thanks to all for your kind explanation. I realize that to say it in a standard way that could adapt to US and UK, PARTNER could be the word. I was afraid to use it because of the meaning this American told me. Maybe in certain circles (she is a university professor) they could now be beginning to use PARTNER with this lesbian meaning.

Thanks to you all.
I guess the name of relationships among people is a changeable thing. When I learned the FAMILY in English(more than 50 years ago), it was mother, father, son, etc. We might now add some new words like my mother's ex-second husband's new life partner...........Do you get me?
THANKS A MILLION!!!

polenta

or my daughter's significant other's mother......
or..................................................my third insignificant non-partner's triplets...........or.......................grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Dragon

solo, I'm with you in that I can't understand why people can't seem to understand that a woman can be single and happy at the same time. I spent most of my adult life as a single woman who was not actively seeking a man. Actually for a long while my motto in life was "I don't NEED a man, I need a cat." (Of course I had to throw that out the window when I got a cat). I wasn't anti-man. I wanted to be in a relationship, it just wasn't the end-all be-all for me and I felt very comfortable living on my own and being independent. I have friends who've never gone more than a month or 2 alone and they didn't get it and were constantly trying to set me up. One friend would just give guys my number and tell them to call me. Never mind that these guys lived 2 hours away from me and she'd only ever met them online, she thought she had to fix me. Needless to say our friendship didn't last long after that.

Wow that was a long ramble and completely off topic of the whole significant other conversation.

I've often called my friends girlfriends and none has ever taken offense. I guess if they did I'd stop calling them that. That being said I think solo is right, it's only my very close friends that I call 'girlfriends' and to simple call them friend seems to lose something. It doesn't quite convey just how close a friendship it is.

Dragon

LOL at 'third insignificant non-partner'!!

solosater

I always say I prefer to be single and content than unhappily married and I think that goes for unhappily coupled in any sense.

Also, you should have got a dog;-)

polenta

Can't say very much about being alone. I'm married. In theory I think you're right but you have to live it first to be sure of what you are saying. And in fact, I don't have this experience. What is important is to be happy. I hope you both are.

Arw65

Slightly off topic... or maybe back to topic, im not sure which.
Polenta, you make my day. sometimes i forget that there are so many nationalities on this sight.
In a comment you made on one of my pics today, you called it 'Beautifully Ugly'. which made my laugh. Beautifully ugly is something you would call a person who only looks good/sexy/beautiful from a distance, but up close is really unattractive. At lest that's what it means in my part of the world.

I thought it was an appropriate description for a dragon. beautiful from a distance, but i would not want to get close to dragon.

- ok- that was all. Continue your discussion.

polenta

Yes, arw it could be what you said. Also, it's that this animal is really ugly but your rendition or depiction of it is beautiful. It happens to me that I many times see "aesthetic beauty" in a painting showing someone very ugly or incredibly old and wrinkled or dressed in rags. Does it happen to others? There could be "aesthetic beauty" in what is not beautiful in itself.

polenta

If a kid or teenager behaves badly, his parents could spank them or currently don't allow them to watch TV, go out, have his monthly pocket money etc, etc.
I think the words I use for this situation are too formal. Could anyone tell me other words that are more usual and informal.
I've heard; PENALTY, PENALIZED, PUNISHED, GROUNDED.
Thanks if someone could help me

lynnspotter

Probably would use punished, or grounded(which is more slangy but very commonly used.

sheftali52

Agree with lynnspotter--"grounded" seems to be used most frequently.

Baldur

Grounded is very commonly used but usually only in regards to not being allowed to go out.
If you take away the pocket money, internet, unrestricted cell phone use etc it would most likely be called 'punishment'

Once the epitome of punishment was to send the child to his room where supposedly there would be nothing to do but think over the transgression.
Children here however are quite spoiled now and their room would seem a cross between a media center and a toy store, hardly a punishment at all.

matthew

"Restricted"

polenta

thanks everybody... so it was one of the words I had known apart from matthew's "restricted". I don't know why I thought all these words were too formal. Thanks a lot. Very kind of you.