Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from House top
Speaker 1: Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Kristen and I'm Caroline, So Caroline. Last time on stuff
Speaker 1: Mom Never Told You, we talked about couple speak and
Speaker 1: the intimate ways that we talked to people that we love,
Speaker 1: whether that's we love them romantically or their best friends
Speaker 1: or family. But now we're going to talk about our
Speaker 1: public presentation of those private relationships and specifically what we
Speaker 1: call our significant others. Business partner, yes, my business partner, No,
Speaker 1: that's gonna come up. Professional boyfriend? Well, what do you found?
Speaker 1: Like a gigglow? Yeah? Who's to say? Really, it's true.
Speaker 1: I mean that's the thing. For all the language that
Speaker 1: you have to talk about love, it can be surprisingly
Speaker 1: hard to find a label that fits unless you are married,
Speaker 1: in which you're like, oh, well, spouse, husband, wife done. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: I my aunt has been with her boyfriend question Mark
Speaker 1: for like thirty years. Um, and I don't know how
Speaker 1: to refer to him obviously, Like, yeah, when I'm talking
Speaker 1: to other people telling them about I guess like he's
Speaker 1: my uncle. But what's what do I call him? Well?
Speaker 1: Is there also the age factor of it feeling strange
Speaker 1: to call a significantly older dude boyfriend. Yeah, there is
Speaker 1: something that feels a little juvenile, little high school about that.
Speaker 1: I mean, I still feel comfortable calling my boyfriend a boyfriend.
Speaker 1: But then again, you know, I I feel like I'm fifteen.
Speaker 1: I can't even drive yet. I can't. Well, I've had
Speaker 1: friends my age. You are the exact opposite who already
Speaker 1: feel too old for boyfriend girlfriend. And we'll switch to
Speaker 1: the partner. Have they been together a long time? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's always with a serious relationship, but
Speaker 1: not that long. I'm saying, like after like the year
Speaker 1: or two mark. Yeah, but no, my boyfriend I've been
Speaker 1: together for just a little every year and we're still
Speaker 1: like sailing right along in boyfriend girlfriend land. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: had I had no issue with boyfriend before I got
Speaker 1: the old bump. I don't know if it's up or sideways,
Speaker 1: just like in a circle. Uh. To fiance. The thing
Speaker 1: I like about fiance, though, even though the spellings are
Speaker 1: different it's pronounced the same, is that it's just across
Speaker 1: the board, everybody's a fiance nothing. It's very gender neutral.
Speaker 1: So I feel like that's that's interesting to think about.
Speaker 1: Although I know some people who hate fiance and think
Speaker 1: that it's stilted really like it's old fashioned or too fancy,
Speaker 1: or yeah, it just sounds weird, very affected since it's French. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: speak Americans speak American? Uh, and betrothed, right, because that
Speaker 1: doesn't sound still to their old fashioned at all. No. Um,
Speaker 1: So today on the show, we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: this question of what to call your bay basically because
Speaker 1: in terms of us waiting longer than ever before to
Speaker 1: get married, of us, you know, being perhaps in our forties,
Speaker 1: fifties and even sixties with technically boyfriends and girlfriends if
Speaker 1: we aren't married, gender fluidity, these two boxes either or
Speaker 1: a boyfriend or a girlfriend not really fitting everyone in
Speaker 1: the same way that they were supposed to so long ago. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's interesting to consider the language of how we publicly
Speaker 1: identify ourselves as a unit. Yeah. Before the twentieth century,
Speaker 1: the terms boyfriend and girlfriend had slightly different meanings than
Speaker 1: what we think of now. For instance, there was an
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty publication that describes a boy friend to words
Speaker 1: lending books to his pal. So that was purely like
Speaker 1: you are my male friend. Yeah, yeah, you're just a guy.
Speaker 1: You're just a guy that I'm friends with. And according
Speaker 1: to Jan Freeman, who was writing in the Boston Globe,
Speaker 1: there's an eighteen seventy history that quotes a letter sent
Speaker 1: by a young Richard Henry Lee to his boyfriend George Washington.
Speaker 1: But that's hyphenated boyfriend. Issues of punctuation. Well that's a
Speaker 1: big Well, it's a big difference between a boy friend
Speaker 1: and a boyfriend. Yeah. Well, we're getting closer to it
Speaker 1: becoming one word. Yeah. Yeah, So in girlfriend takes a
Speaker 1: turn for the romantic. According to the Oxford English Dictionary,
Speaker 1: we have one F. J. Furnival, who wrote a book
Speaker 1: dedicated that year to quote the memory of Tina Rockfort Smith.
Speaker 1: My much respect it and deeply regretted girlfriend. And he
Speaker 1: doesn't mean deeply regretted. And then it was a terrible relationship. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: Tina died. Yeah, Fernival left his wife for Tina, who
Speaker 1: was apparently a Shakespearean scholar. Hey, Tina, she died by
Speaker 1: setting her petticoats on fire. Tina, Tina, Tina, I'm just
Speaker 1: imagining Tina from Bob's Burgers. Even though this Tina is
Speaker 1: spelled with two ease um. But it is around the
Speaker 1: turn of the century that both boyfriend and girlfriend take
Speaker 1: on them more romantic meaning. But side note, it is
Speaker 1: interesting to note that platonic girlfriend sticks around in our vernacular.
Speaker 1: We still refer to our platonic girlfriends. But I'm hard
Speaker 1: pressed to find a straight dude at least, or any dude. Really.
Speaker 1: I don't know if any guy who refers to his
Speaker 1: boyfriends who aren't boyfriends that he's sleeping with. No. The
Speaker 1: only I don't know that I've ever heard at the
Speaker 1: only instance I can even imagine would be some guy
Speaker 1: trying to be funny or ironic because he's uncomfortable with
Speaker 1: that idea. But yeah, my mom. I you know, my
Speaker 1: mom still refers to her best friend as her girlfriend
Speaker 1: all the time. And to me, as a child, like
Speaker 1: a young child, being very literal minded, I was always
Speaker 1: a little bit confused. I didn't ever think my mother
Speaker 1: was a lesbian, but I was always very confused at
Speaker 1: her use of the word girlfriend because to my child brain,
Speaker 1: I was like, well, no, that means somebody that you're dating.
Speaker 1: And so I was always confused, like why do you
Speaker 1: call her your girlfriend? Your voice was so quam worn't
Speaker 1: I was nervous about everything. Well, even with the platonic boyfriend,
Speaker 1: you're far likelier for anyone to more jokingly say, oh,
Speaker 1: his man friend, yeah, which is I mean, how I
Speaker 1: have jokingly referred to my boyfriend before my man friend,
Speaker 1: my gentleman calla a gentleman cola. That's very m fonbl
Speaker 1: of you. Yeah. I just hope my petticoats don't get
Speaker 1: set on fine. Watch out, um. As we move though
Speaker 1: into the twentieth century, with the automobile and teenage culture
Speaker 1: happening like never before, literally like never before. After World
Speaker 1: War Two, we really see boyfriend girlfriend get set in stone.
Speaker 1: For instance, in Emily post New Etiquette answers a question
Speaker 1: about seating arrangements when a girl picks up her boyfriend
Speaker 1: one word and girlfriend two words, and I think the
Speaker 1: boy is supposed to sit in the middle so he
Speaker 1: can know the boy was supposed to sit on the
Speaker 1: outside the passenger seat so that he could turn and
Speaker 1: speak with both ladies, both the girlfriend and the girl friends,
Speaker 1: so that he would never be turning away from the
Speaker 1: girl friend so as not to exclude the female friend.
Speaker 1: How nice avoid and being the third wheel. Thanks Emily
Speaker 1: post Um but if we look at its usage, at
Speaker 1: least in literature, it also skyrockets in the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 1: Again not surprising, we have this major revival of team
Speaker 1: culture in pop music, seeing about hand holding and girlfriends
Speaker 1: and boyfriends. Um, and you can see this plotted out
Speaker 1: in google Ingraham of just in the sixties and my
Speaker 1: boyfriend and girlfriend. Yeah, not just teen culture. But I
Speaker 1: would also think that starting in the sixties and then
Speaker 1: moving into the seventies and eighties, you would start to
Speaker 1: see more people living together or or just being in
Speaker 1: romantic relationships with each other and they're not married, right,
Speaker 1: there's that longer period between being your parents child and
Speaker 1: being someone's spouse. So did we miss an opportunity then,
Speaker 1: like in the sixties too, we because we were around, uh,
Speaker 1: to come up with a different and better name for
Speaker 1: our significant others than girlfriend and boyfriend. No, because you know,
Speaker 1: if it were in the sixties, it would be something
Speaker 1: real groovy and awful. Probably probably it would probably like
Speaker 1: your something mate, I bet like you're I'm just picturing
Speaker 1: the SNL skits with Will Ferrell and Rachel Dratch in
Speaker 1: the hot tub Lover Lover. But speaking though of the
Speaker 1: eighties and people living together living in sin This was
Speaker 1: when the Census Bureau discovered that enough straight folks at
Speaker 1: least because again this is the eighties, so that the
Speaker 1: very headeronormative eighties, they identified enough straight people in the
Speaker 1: United States living together as unmarried couples that they decide
Speaker 1: they need to begin counting them. Um, but it can't
Speaker 1: label them boyfriends and girlfriends, so it comes up with
Speaker 1: its own special acronym, which is the most romantic acronym
Speaker 1: that a couple could imagine. Apostle que. But what in
Speaker 1: the heck apostle que persons of opposite sexes sharing living quarters.
Speaker 1: Oh if that's not sexy, I don't know what is.
Speaker 1: All I'm saying is a Census Bureau missed an opportunity
Speaker 1: to make some major cheddar off of the Valentines. Will
Speaker 1: you be my bossil que? Oh yeah, that's a good
Speaker 1: idea for us for February, Kristen. We could come up
Speaker 1: with her on sminty Valentine. Although I mean again, though,
Speaker 1: it's very heteronormative. Persons of opposite sexes sharing living quarters.
Speaker 1: So you could be apostle queue or could you could
Speaker 1: still be apostle que? Would just be apostle que with
Speaker 1: with an extra s in there person of the same
Speaker 1: sex sharing living quarters. So cute, we're still a post
Speaker 1: in their person of Oh yeah, person of same sex. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right, So thanks Census Bureau. I want to know
Speaker 1: how much, uh I do love imagining though the meetings,
Speaker 1: the brainstorming meetings around that acronym. You know, someone at
Speaker 1: the chalkboard and you know some eighties fabulous clothes really
Speaker 1: trying to figure out, like what do we call these people?
Speaker 1: And then you have a young, dynamic person with shoulder
Speaker 1: pads who sees the acronym and yells out, we'll call
Speaker 1: it possile Q. And and she was a secretary. She
Speaker 1: was just like in for the day. You certain things
Speaker 1: are like awesome idea, Brad. And then this is actually
Speaker 1: it's actually the plot of the sequel to Working Girl. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Working Girl calling possible ques. Well, fast forward out of
Speaker 1: the eighties, unfortunately, I mean, we could just stay in
Speaker 1: the eighties due today and we have the average age
Speaker 1: of marriage in the US up to seven for women
Speaker 1: and twenty nine for men. In other words, were waiting
Speaker 1: longer than ever to get married. If we get married
Speaker 1: We did a whole week long exploration on people who
Speaker 1: are single by choice or just not interested in even
Speaker 1: if they're in a couple, just not interested in making
Speaker 1: it legal. You meant, of all Americans over eighteen aren't married,
Speaker 1: and you also have more unmarried couples than ever before
Speaker 1: having kids. Yes, it's no surprise that we're having conversations
Speaker 1: about what do you What do I call this person
Speaker 1: that doesn't sound like we're in high school? Yeah, because
Speaker 1: that was something that uh follower on Twitter noted how
Speaker 1: strange it is to call his long term girlfriend technically
Speaker 1: his girlfriend because they also just had a kid together.
Speaker 1: It's like, she's so much more than a girlfriend to me,
Speaker 1: but she's not my wife technically number one gal number
Speaker 1: one gal um but unscientific observation Caroline when researching on
Speaker 1: too old for boyfriend and Google just to like see
Speaker 1: what people were saying about it. If you search that,
Speaker 1: all the Google results focused on what to call dudes
Speaker 1: you're dating who seemed way too old to call boy
Speaker 1: so your man friend, for instance. But if you start
Speaker 1: looking up too old for girlfriend, most of the Google
Speaker 1: results are about guys wonder whether they're too old to
Speaker 1: go for a hot young girlfriend. And I don't exactly
Speaker 1: know what that means other than that society ages men
Speaker 1: and women in very different ways. They do or or
Speaker 1: people definitely internalize those social messages differently in terms of
Speaker 1: what's acceptable. Yeah, I mean it seems like not many
Speaker 1: guys are concerned about being too old to be called boyfriend,
Speaker 1: seems like or two, or too old to call their
Speaker 1: significant other girlfriend. Yeah, but women straight women in this
Speaker 1: context are seemed more invested in it. But moving out
Speaker 1: of my my just mental google queries. Uh. The New
Speaker 1: York Times Style Guide says that boyfriend girlfriend are quote
Speaker 1: informal and best reserved for teenagers, but it doesn't offer
Speaker 1: any substitute. Just like a winey person on the team,
Speaker 1: springing your problems around, but not offering a solution. Thanks
Speaker 1: a lot, Obama, that's thanks a lot. Oprah, what does
Speaker 1: she call studman? Whatever she wants? Yeah, I wonder if
Speaker 1: she just I just maybe she just says studman, you're
Speaker 1: my studman. Yeah, I mean there there is a label necessary.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're Oprah, you're my steady man, Stan
Speaker 1: Hey steady man or studman, so stud muffin and so
Speaker 1: it is. Though this uncertainty, not with Oprah, but with
Speaker 1: what to call your significant other? That The New York
Speaker 1: Times ended up devoting an entire style section piece to
Speaker 1: what unmarried, long term sometimes our kids couples call each
Speaker 1: other and one that I hated. I'm so sorry if
Speaker 1: you were listening by chance to this episode. Individuals who
Speaker 1: use this term um, but one woman said she uses
Speaker 1: the term husband for fake or future husband. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: plus there's another F word that could make that entirely controversial. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Has been not my favorite either. Some other people they
Speaker 1: talked to in that article refer to their partners as
Speaker 1: mere or just baby daddy. But I feel like a
Speaker 1: lot of these are almost like their pet names for
Speaker 1: each other. It felt like it's not like they're gonna
Speaker 1: walk into a fancy cocktail party and be like, and Jim,
Speaker 1: here is my baby daddy. Although if she does that
Speaker 1: or he does that at high five bit, I don't know,
Speaker 1: that sounds like a really like yuppy white thing to do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true, my baby's daddy, isn't that hilarious? Um? But
Speaker 1: this is the pickle though, where it's you're not technically
Speaker 1: a fiancee, spouse, husband, wife, all of which are so
Speaker 1: linguistically simple when you think about it. I mean, I've
Speaker 1: taken all of these terms for granted until researching this,
Speaker 1: because there's that universal understanding of what all of those
Speaker 1: were it's mean. And when we're in more of this
Speaker 1: like relationship gray area, as many of us are in
Speaker 1: these days, we have to develop our own terms, and
Speaker 1: sometimes they get ridiculous, like fuzzband. And Carmen Fought, who's
Speaker 1: a linguist at pittsur College, thinks that there's a reason
Speaker 1: why these terms get so ridiculous. Yeah, it's because we're
Speaker 1: uncomfortable still, no matter what the percentages from the Census
Speaker 1: Bureau say, we're uncomfortable with the idea of unmarried people
Speaker 1: living together, having children together, doing the it's together, and
Speaker 1: not being married. What's the it's Caroline, You'll you'll learn
Speaker 1: one day. Yeah, it's just the whole thing of using
Speaker 1: humor to soften or deflect social deviance, which the thing
Speaker 1: is not being married these days. Really isn't that socially deviant,
Speaker 1: But there's still that puritanical part of our culture that
Speaker 1: considers it not entirely appropriate. Well, there's that, but there's
Speaker 1: also the self consciousness that comes along with the fact
Speaker 1: that we don't have a good across the board word.
Speaker 1: So even if you're you've been with your left's just
Speaker 1: say partner, even if you've been with your partner for
Speaker 1: twenty five years, there's still kind of a self conscious
Speaker 1: thing of like, well, this isn't my husband's slash wife,
Speaker 1: Like what are you going to think about it? Like,
Speaker 1: I'm fine with our situation, but it kind of having
Speaker 1: to introduce a person in public sort of throws into
Speaker 1: stark relief, like, oh, well, I don't want to call
Speaker 1: you boyfriend because you know whatever, we're sixty but I
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe sweetheart, Well sweetheart, I wonder too if
Speaker 1: that self consciousness also comes from the implications of commitment
Speaker 1: or a lack of commitment, because if someone is your spouse,
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, those two people are in it to
Speaker 1: win it for the long haul or until the wars happens.
Speaker 1: But boyfriend girlfriend implies a casual nature to it, which
Speaker 1: obviously is not the case for someone like your aunt
Speaker 1: who has been a girlfriend for many, many, many years. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: there's also the idea that they talked about in this article.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it was Carmen Fodd who brought
Speaker 1: it up. But the idea of slowing down the whole
Speaker 1: adapting to convention process, so like getting married, like legally
Speaker 1: being married and then therefore referring to someone as your
Speaker 1: spouse or your husband or your wife. Um, even if
Speaker 1: you have a very unconventional relationship, that's still sort of
Speaker 1: buying into a degree of convention. So some of the
Speaker 1: people in this article were discussing the fact that not
Speaker 1: a not getting married and be referring to them as
Speaker 1: something other than a partner or a spouse or a
Speaker 1: husband is a way of sort of bucking that convention. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and if you are into bucking that convention. Cat stofall
Speaker 1: at the Cut provided a handy guide for figuring out
Speaker 1: the best non boyfriend girlfriend title for your coupling. And
Speaker 1: that's boyfriend girlfriend like interchangeable of its boyfriend boyfriend girlfriend girlfriend,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Um, so some of them
Speaker 1: that I wanted to highlight. There's other half, which she
Speaker 1: says is good for codependent people. There's also help meat,
Speaker 1: which sounds like something you put on the grill or
Speaker 1: it just reminds me of minced meat. Yeah, help me brains.
Speaker 1: But she says it's good for Adam and even people
Speaker 1: who are supposed to be submissive since it is that
Speaker 1: biblical term. Although I kind of like help me, you know,
Speaker 1: when I'm loving the dishwasher, I'd like to help me please.
Speaker 1: M hmm. Yeah. She also lists the term bow, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, the Oxford English Dictionary she just may
Speaker 1: have given rise to the term boo. I don't mind bow.
Speaker 1: To be honest, I don't mind it either, but she
Speaker 1: says that that's good for parents who are trying not
Speaker 1: to embarrass their recently sexually active children. And I thought
Speaker 1: about it and I was like, yeah, I can absolutely
Speaker 1: see parents being like, oh, how's your bow? Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: oh parents ruined everything. Here's just an understand And then,
Speaker 1: on a side note, can we just mention the pre
Speaker 1: boyfriend girlfriend semi awkward label of the guy girl whomever
Speaker 1: that I'm seeing. It's like, you don't you're in the
Speaker 1: phase before that person even gets a label. But in
Speaker 1: saying that I'm seeing this person, that's also coded too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's coated. It's also awkward and has that whole self
Speaker 1: conscious thing that we just talked about. When my boyfriend
Speaker 1: and I first started dating, we realized very early on
Speaker 1: that we were really good together and that we had
Speaker 1: something special. Um, but he was very much more I
Speaker 1: don't want to say eager, because that that gives it
Speaker 1: the wrong tone. But he was very much more like,
Speaker 1: you're you're my girlfriend, Like let's let's be honest. And
Speaker 1: I was like, no, I'm not, and he's like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: let's just call it what it is, you're my girlfriend.
Speaker 1: And so we had about like a two week period where, uh,
Speaker 1: anytime we referred to that topic, I would be like, well, no,
Speaker 1: because I'm only like sixt your girlfriend. So I don't
Speaker 1: know that we ever even had a period where we
Speaker 1: were people that were seeing each other, you know, we
Speaker 1: were dating. But even in that dating period, it was like, well,
Speaker 1: now i think I'm like eighty five percent your girlfriend,
Speaker 1: and he would do something and I'm like, oh, negative
Speaker 1: seven your girlfriend. So there was a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of playfulness around the terms boyfriend and girlfriend. You're
Speaker 1: never just seeing each other. Biblically speaking, it wasn't your
Speaker 1: casual help me. Still, that just sounds it just sounds meaty.
Speaker 1: Now at this point, some listeners might be thinking Christal
Speaker 1: and Caroline Duh partner just use partner. It's gender neutral.
Speaker 1: It doesn't imply marriage, but there's also the implication of
Speaker 1: commitment in it, yes and no, Yes, yes and no. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there's some kind of commitment, not necessarily romantic commitment.
Speaker 1: Perhaps you're opening a grocery store together. Yes, I mean so,
Speaker 1: some people complained that it does feel very clinical and
Speaker 1: yes professional um also unscientific. Observation number two. Women who
Speaker 1: refer to their partners are often assumed lesbian, whether they
Speaker 1: are or not, while men who refer to their partners
Speaker 1: are often thought to be referring to business partners. And again,
Speaker 1: all of this is just reflective of health society views
Speaker 1: men and women differently, isn't interesting. Yeah, Now I have thought, Well,
Speaker 1: someone who I knew what her business was, so I
Speaker 1: knew she wasn't referring to a business partner, she did
Speaker 1: mention a partner one time, and I did automatically assume
Speaker 1: she meant her lesbian life partner. But no, she's married
Speaker 1: to a man, so she was just calling him partner,
Speaker 1: and I was confused. And that's that's my own brain.
Speaker 1: There you have it. Well, pre gay marriage legalization, there
Speaker 1: was the use of partner by straight folks almost as
Speaker 1: a sign of solidarity, you know, of let's just let's
Speaker 1: make it equal across the board. Everyone can be each
Speaker 1: other's partners or should be nothing wrong with that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like I remember Angelina Julian brad Pitt doing
Speaker 1: this before they got married. Yeah. I mean it's not
Speaker 1: only gender neutral, it is sexual orientation neutral as well.
Speaker 1: But not all LGBT people are like, yeah, partner, it's
Speaker 1: our special term and we love it. For instance, Brett Burke,
Speaker 1: who is forty three, well it was forty three the
Speaker 1: time when The New York Times interviewed him, had been
Speaker 1: with his boyfriend for twenty three years, and he said
Speaker 1: that quote partner is disgusting, but he says it's boyfriend,
Speaker 1: which he and his boyfriend use. Um is also challenging
Speaker 1: sometimes because it makes people assume that he and his
Speaker 1: twenty three year long relationship person haven't been dating long
Speaker 1: at all, Like it implies that it's a new relationship.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, but now the same sex couples can get married.
Speaker 1: There are questions that apparently a bunch of straight people
Speaker 1: have about like what do you call each other? And
Speaker 1: Washington Post columnist Stephen Petro actually did a great job
Speaker 1: of tackling this question because I believe it was not
Speaker 1: just why can't you just call each other partner, but
Speaker 1: it was I think the person was asking like, if
Speaker 1: two women or two men get married, who's the wife
Speaker 1: and who's the husband, which is like, you know, my
Speaker 1: head is just on the desk, head desk uh. And
Speaker 1: he he handled it with grace and he just said, well,
Speaker 1: first of all, he said, please don't ever ask a
Speaker 1: same sex couple who's the husband and who's the wife.
Speaker 1: That's really demeaning. But he went on to explain like, yeah,
Speaker 1: people can call whoever you want, call them your partner
Speaker 1: if you want, if that's what you choose to do,
Speaker 1: but we have earned the right to refer to our
Speaker 1: legal spouses as husband and wife. That's a term. Therese
Speaker 1: are terms that have been around forever, they've been in
Speaker 1: use forever, and they have meaning you can't just divorce
Speaker 1: them of meaning. Well, they're very privileged terms. You know
Speaker 1: that that we're exclusive to specific groups of people. So
Speaker 1: it makes sense that yeah, I mean someone is your
Speaker 1: husband your wife that like you said, I mean that
Speaker 1: has a universal significance to it, that that partner can
Speaker 1: have I mean, I think it's up to every couple
Speaker 1: obviously to determine what label fits them best. But by
Speaker 1: the same token, I don't think that a part that
Speaker 1: partner is a one size fits all either. Sure. Now,
Speaker 1: what I was fascinated to learn in all of this, Caroline,
Speaker 1: was that before partner came around, significant other predated it
Speaker 1: as the gender neutral, unmarried couple, universal one size fits
Speaker 1: all attempted term. But it didn't originate specifically to refer
Speaker 1: to a boyfriend or husband or whatever, right correct? Yeah.
Speaker 1: In a column, Williams. Sapphire explains that the term significant
Speaker 1: other originated in psychotherapy. Psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan defined personality
Speaker 1: as a relatively enduring pattern of our current interpersonal situations,
Speaker 1: especially involving relationships with quote significant others, and that could
Speaker 1: be friends, family, or really anyone else who helps shapes
Speaker 1: those norms and behaviors that make up your personality. And
Speaker 1: at the time, significant other caught on as a more
Speaker 1: vogue reference to live in live togethers in the super
Speaker 1: vague roommates that people were using because this was a
Speaker 1: new landscape. Again, Like I mean, Sapphire was writing this
Speaker 1: in um in pre marital cohabitation still wasn't nearly as
Speaker 1: common as it is today, so we're grappling for what
Speaker 1: to call our apostle cues essentially um. But significant other
Speaker 1: also is a little bit clunky. Yeah, that's another one
Speaker 1: of those terms that I used with a wink, you know, like, yes,
Speaker 1: technically my boyfriend is my significant other, like in the
Speaker 1: way that we use that term today. But I'm not
Speaker 1: going to be like, hello, Kristin, meet my significant other.
Speaker 1: It does just kind of sound a little, like you said,
Speaker 1: clunky and a little dusty, yeah, like it's you your
Speaker 1: significant other. What. But I do like how sapphire prefers
Speaker 1: sweetheart because quote it doesn't draw leers and we could
Speaker 1: all use a little romanticism and describing romances that exist
Speaker 1: without benefit of clergy. I like that too, And so
Speaker 1: in our last episode, Kristen and I mentioned use of
Speaker 1: the word sweetheart and how I can be one of
Speaker 1: those toxic pet names that like listen sweetheart or you
Speaker 1: know something that's not as as positive and romantic. But
Speaker 1: I do like it in terms of this is my sweetheart.
Speaker 1: I think it's very cute, and it's very fifties and
Speaker 1: not that I want to be all retrograde, but I
Speaker 1: think it's cute. Well, I gotta tell you, Caroline, I
Speaker 1: would opt for Bay over sweetheart. Yeah, and do you.
Speaker 1: I'm a fan of Bay. I use babe and boo
Speaker 1: more often with my fiance, but that's just between us.
Speaker 1: I don't introduce him as my boo. Well sometimes casually
Speaker 1: I will. Um, but I like this idea of Bay
Speaker 1: b a e. As perhaps the gender neutral unmarried couple
Speaker 1: commitment specifying term that we've all been waiting for. It's
Speaker 1: just been an African American vernacular English just just waiting
Speaker 1: to permeate the culture as it has now, sometimes much
Speaker 1: to the chagrin of people who are like you were
Speaker 1: using this so wrong. Um, but what do you think
Speaker 1: about Bay? I I still don't think that that will
Speaker 1: replace boyfriend. I mean, maybe it will, who knows, But
Speaker 1: I still it's still just like to me, like babe,
Speaker 1: which is basically what it's a shortened version of babe
Speaker 1: or baby. You know, I'm still not going to introduce
Speaker 1: my boyfriend is Hey, Kristen, this is my babe, because
Speaker 1: you'd be like, oh what, I don't know, I don't
Speaker 1: I don't mean to put judgments in your mouth. I
Speaker 1: do think though, that it's way more common and totally
Speaker 1: acceptable for people to introduce their significant older as Bay
Speaker 1: on social media. And don't we know that social media
Speaker 1: and relationship status is are everything now? Yeah, well, so
Speaker 1: does that that just means to me that Bay is
Speaker 1: about to be over? Maybe? I don't think so. I
Speaker 1: think Bay is here to stay. I think Bay overtook
Speaker 1: Boo obviously, and it's here to stay. Even though it's
Speaker 1: to the point where everything can be Bay. It can
Speaker 1: be used as like every part of speech, Yeah, like
Speaker 1: something is Bay, you are Bay, they are Bay. I
Speaker 1: kind of love that though. I really love how interchangeable
Speaker 1: it is. Um. But yeah, I mean like it's it's
Speaker 1: definitely we reach peak Bay. But I don't think that
Speaker 1: that means that that Bay is going to go anywhere. Also,
Speaker 1: because it's been around for quite a while, well yeah,
Speaker 1: it's better after like a decade. But I do think
Speaker 1: that the fact that it's everywhere on social media, I
Speaker 1: just wonder, like, surely, if we are at peak Bay,
Speaker 1: that we're going to reach a tipping point, and then
Speaker 1: what does that mean for who still uses it? Eventually? Okay,
Speaker 1: so we'll hit the tipping point, it won't be cool
Speaker 1: to say anymore. It'll mean that you're out of touch.
Speaker 1: You're probably a fifth year old white man using it. Um.
Speaker 1: But then give it another couple of years and it
Speaker 1: will come back around. Yeah, my dad, if I ever
Speaker 1: hear my dad saying my daughter Christian is so Bay,
Speaker 1: I would actually love it. I was about to say
Speaker 1: that'd be ridiculous, but I'd be down with that. I
Speaker 1: mean in terms of who when we've reached peak Bay
Speaker 1: and it and it dies, it just means that white
Speaker 1: people will stop saying that. I mean, that's also what
Speaker 1: we're saying in all of this. It's like we've like
Speaker 1: grabbed it and tried to make it our own, and
Speaker 1: we loved it to death probably. Um. But aside from Bay,
Speaker 1: there are lots of gender neutral options. Because boyfriend girlfriend
Speaker 1: can be unfitting for those who age factor a side
Speaker 1: marriage episide, Let's talk about people who are not so
Speaker 1: down with binaries, who want a term that fits their
Speaker 1: gender identity in a more comfortable manner, because that's also
Speaker 1: important too. Sure. Yeah, we pulled some examples from Everyday
Speaker 1: Feminism and non binary dot org and they include boyfriend,
Speaker 1: fay friend, and date mate, which that just makes me think,
Speaker 1: honestly Kristen of a past episode we did about peammates,
Speaker 1: So I can't I wouldn't be able to use date mate,
Speaker 1: But I don't know. Maybe date mate and helped meat
Speaker 1: could be kind of the same thing. You've got date
Speaker 1: meat date. It sounds like something you would bring to
Speaker 1: a picnic date or enjoy on a date hubba hubba. Well,
Speaker 1: and then friend, since Fay is fe Y, it does
Speaker 1: make me think of a special term I can use
Speaker 1: when Tina Fey is actually my friend. Oh yeah, Fay
Speaker 1: friends friend. She's a fairy friend. Um. I also like
Speaker 1: the very basic companion um, which non binary dot org
Speaker 1: notes is a neutral reference to dr Who's companions or
Speaker 1: fireflies companions And that's the sweet thing to my companion.
Speaker 1: It's nice that implies like commitment and uh intimacy. But
Speaker 1: I mean, the word companion is nothing new. It's a
Speaker 1: word you've often heard for for decades and decades, for
Speaker 1: for a lesbian couple or a gameil couple back in
Speaker 1: the days when their relationship had to be closeted. So
Speaker 1: the whole euphemistic companion, yeah, I mean, I can say
Speaker 1: that coming from a newspaper background, reading lots of obituaries,
Speaker 1: you know, editing obituaries and things like that, you would
Speaker 1: often see companion and and it's it's not used with
Speaker 1: a wink. It's absolutely meant as a respectful term for like, well,
Speaker 1: we don't really know what to call them, because that's
Speaker 1: the day and age we live in. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: but there is still something There is something sweet for
Speaker 1: sure about companion um stuff on ever told you listeners
Speaker 1: also have lots of ideas about what to call your
Speaker 1: significant others. I'm just now defaulting to significant other, I'm
Speaker 1: realizing as I'm talking on this podcast. Caroline Sminty fan Catherine,
Speaker 1: for instance, let us know via Facebook that she said,
Speaker 1: it took me until last year to figure out that
Speaker 1: my preferred term is spouse. At least in Canada, after
Speaker 1: two years of living together, we're considered common law spouses,
Speaker 1: so it made sense. It had the right amount of
Speaker 1: grown up without being too clinical or mushy. Just when
Speaker 1: I figured out this perfect alternative to calling him my boyfriend,
Speaker 1: he became my fiance. Not that I'm complaining. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: Agnes says, in my language, we use sharista, which means dearest,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't sound that goofy for boyfriend and girlfriend
Speaker 1: no matter what age they are. And Sam boyd which
Speaker 1: means co liver. She says it's useful and age and
Speaker 1: gender neutral. I kind of love that. How do you
Speaker 1: say the dearest again, Charista, Charista or Charista one of
Speaker 1: the two. That's really sweet. Also co liver. I'll take
Speaker 1: co liver too, Will you be my co liver? Um
Speaker 1: Ali said, if I ever end up with someone, I
Speaker 1: might say they're my cuteness and in return I shall
Speaker 1: be their cuteness. I like that, but that's that's also
Speaker 1: kind of a pet name. And uh Amy said there's
Speaker 1: a whole new word needed. How about protagonist? And I
Speaker 1: was like, wait, did I read that wrong? No protagonist,
Speaker 1: she says, proto meaning first or most important, and gammist
Speaker 1: meaning married to are mating with. She says it's gender neutral,
Speaker 1: adult sounding, and most importantly, in my mind, grammatically correct.
Speaker 1: I'm Amy and this is my protagonist, and I'm his
Speaker 1: or her protagonist. And then Sam suggested lifemate and paramore
Speaker 1: as good terms as well, and paramore is pretty fancy.
Speaker 1: Paramore is very fancy again French, making people feel like
Speaker 1: it's stuffy. Isn't there that band paramore? There is that
Speaker 1: band paramore. It also for me, paramore is like the
Speaker 1: more chaste version of lover lover, which is so creepy
Speaker 1: it kind of makes my skin crawl to refer to
Speaker 1: use lover in that way, and right paramore to me,
Speaker 1: to my ears, just sounds like a little bit more
Speaker 1: of a fancy, chaste version of that. I feel like
Speaker 1: you can't introduce someone as your lover if you're not
Speaker 1: at that point touching them, like with both both hands
Speaker 1: on as much of their physical real estate as possible.
Speaker 1: Is my lover. I feel like that's only either used
Speaker 1: ironically to be funny and to try to make your
Speaker 1: friends uncomfortable or your significant other uncomfortable, nor your parents,
Speaker 1: or it's used by like some new aged person in
Speaker 1: Santa fe Well, listeners, now, we want to know what
Speaker 1: your couple labels are. Do you just stick with a
Speaker 1: boyfriend girlfriend or have you found those terms to not
Speaker 1: exactly fit your relationship or just you who you are
Speaker 1: in love? Let us know your thoughts. Mom Stuff at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com is our email address. You
Speaker 1: can also tweet us at mom stuff podcast or messages
Speaker 1: on Facebook, and we've got a couple of messages to
Speaker 1: share with you right now. So I've got a Facebook
Speaker 1: message here from Josie about our waitressing episode. She said,
Speaker 1: as someone who's worked in the service industry for eight
Speaker 1: plus years, I really enjoyed listening to your episode on waitressing.
Speaker 1: Most of my employment as a waitress, I worked at
Speaker 1: a little low place called Denny's, where I worked four
Speaker 1: to ten hour shifts for five days a week, but
Speaker 1: never over forty hours. Sure on the weekends I would
Speaker 1: make twelve to fifteen bucks an hour at night, but
Speaker 1: during the slow times in the day, I would most
Speaker 1: likely be sent home after four to six hours, only
Speaker 1: making five dollars an hour, and this includes that to
Speaker 1: thirteen an hour. Until your episode, i'd never heard of
Speaker 1: a union for servers and seriously wished they were still
Speaker 1: around today. I always thought it was unfair that I
Speaker 1: wasn't expected to work for tips, but often required to
Speaker 1: take time away from serving in deep clean work areas
Speaker 1: when it was slow enough. This meant that I was
Speaker 1: being paid only the two thirteen an hour for work
Speaker 1: that in any other job would pay minimum wage or more.
Speaker 1: We were also asked many times to train other waitresses
Speaker 1: without clocking over to training, which would have paid us
Speaker 1: around five dollars an hour plus tips. Our incentive given
Speaker 1: was that we could keep the tips the waitress and
Speaker 1: training received, and if we refused to do it without
Speaker 1: switching over, they just said someone else do it. I
Speaker 1: know a union would have been able to prevent this. Now.
Speaker 1: As for sexual harassment, I can tell you it happened daily.
Speaker 1: When I turned eighteen, a regular customer that I had
Speaker 1: always liked and thought of his grandfatherly suddenly started to
Speaker 1: tell me how he liked how I swayed my hips
Speaker 1: when I walked away from his table. All this and
Speaker 1: more led me to wear baggy clothing and minimal makeup
Speaker 1: to work, which I felt did hinder the amount of
Speaker 1: tips I made, but people were less likely to make
Speaker 1: comments to my face. Luckily, I started to work at
Speaker 1: a different restaurant where people did focus more on the
Speaker 1: quality of service rather than my looks, and eventually outside
Speaker 1: of the service industry completely. But I've always thought of
Speaker 1: it as a valuable skill set and could get a
Speaker 1: job as a waitress again if I ever lost my
Speaker 1: current job. I've always thought everyone should work as a
Speaker 1: server at least once to get a good idea of
Speaker 1: what it's like on the other side of the table.
Speaker 1: Maybe it would teach people to tip better. Thank you
Speaker 1: for the episode and all the great things you too do.
Speaker 1: I can't tell you how many times I've recommended your
Speaker 1: podcast to friends and family. So thank you. Josie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I had this episode in mine last night when I
Speaker 1: was at a bar with some friends and was tipping
Speaker 1: generously more much more than because I was thinking back
Speaker 1: to some of the comments that we received on Facebook
Speaker 1: that were against the idea of tipping in general, or
Speaker 1: tipping to help servers out who don't make living wage. UM.
Speaker 1: I have a letter here from lu Jene. She says,
Speaker 1: high C and C. I was just thinking into a
Speaker 1: hot bath after a long day and hit play on
Speaker 1: your podcast about waitresses. I almost couldn't wait until I
Speaker 1: drive off to write you about my experiences in seven
Speaker 1: years of waiting tables in the college town of Logan, Utah.
Speaker 1: Go Aggies. First, the issue of semantics. My experience with
Speaker 1: the great waitress server debate has been that it all
Speaker 1: depends on the establishment, not just the environment, but the
Speaker 1: actual age of the business. I've worked in a local
Speaker 1: Chinese restaurant and a bar that were both about thirty
Speaker 1: year old businesses, and in both I was most decidedly
Speaker 1: a waitress. However, in any restaurant established within the last
Speaker 1: ten years, I've always been referred to as a server. Personally,
Speaker 1: I prefer the term waitress. I agree that the term
Speaker 1: server is a little too close for comfort to servant.
Speaker 1: I'd also like to share my experience in my current
Speaker 1: job as a waitress in said thirty year old bar.
Speaker 1: Until six months ago, my workplace was completely gender segregated.
Speaker 1: Men were cooks and then were promoted to bartenders, but
Speaker 1: women could only ever be waitresses. I always found this
Speaker 1: to be so incredibly discriminatory. I thought for a few
Speaker 1: weeks that it had to just be a fluke, or
Speaker 1: that somehow the other ladies I work with simply didn't
Speaker 1: want to be bartenders. I quickly realized this was not
Speaker 1: the case. Not only was the division discriminatory, but bartenders
Speaker 1: were paid three seventy five hour where the waitresses made
Speaker 1: two thirty and we were also required to tip the
Speaker 1: bartender of our tips at the end of each shift.
Speaker 1: Gender discrimination is alive and well in the service industry
Speaker 1: thanks to a change to a somewhat more enlightened management staff.
Speaker 1: A few of us ladies now bartend occasionally, but very
Speaker 1: rarely have ships with other waitresses who would be required
Speaker 1: to tip us out. Still to this day, we have
Speaker 1: no male waiters. I do feel the need to point
Speaker 1: out that this arrangement inspires no animosity between waitresses and bartenders. Overall,
Speaker 1: the men I work with are extremely supportive and vigilant
Speaker 1: about harassment in the bar. Any time of belligerent patron
Speaker 1: harasses a waitress or a female customer, the bartenders the
Speaker 1: first to show them to the door. Thanks for the
Speaker 1: amazing podcast, ladies, and thank you for shedding light on
Speaker 1: my oft disregarded and degraded profession. Whenever someone says serving
Speaker 1: is not a real job, I simply wipe away my
Speaker 1: tears with the crisp, large denomination bills I bring home
Speaker 1: each night. So thank you for your letter, and thanks
Speaker 1: to everybody who's written to us. Mom Stuff at how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com is our email address, and Thrill
Speaker 1: links all of our social media as well as all
Speaker 1: of our blogs, videos, and podcasts, including this one, with
Speaker 1: links to our sources so you can learn more about
Speaker 1: boyfriends and girlfriends. Head on over to stuff mom Never
Speaker 1: told You dot com for more on this and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics. Does it, How stuff works dot com