主播大秀

Hey Girlfriend…

• Kim Lenaghan
• 25 Aug 07, 09:23 AM

I wish to discuss with you an issue of terminology that has long perplexed me. Why is it that single men, regardless of age, insist on referring to the women they are with as their ‘girlfriends’. Let me give you an example. Yesterday evening I happened by chance to meet a man I know, very proper, very professional and 60 if he’s a day. I casually asked what he’s doing over the bank holiday weekend and he replied that he was taking his new ‘girlfriend’ sailing. Instantly I had this vision of some brash, blonde, busty, babe of 25, only after him for his money. I needn’t have worried. It turns out that she’s a grandmother, a woman he knew from his university days, who was widowed a few years ago. But you know that misconception isn’t my fault, it’s the image that word conjures up.

Women don’t say ‘boyfriend’. They’ll introduce the man in their life as their ‘partner’ or refer to their ‘significant other’. That’s because women know that when you’re over the age of 40, no make it 35, to call anyone a ‘boyfriend’ is just too, too ‘seventeenish’. It makes you sound like you’ve just written into the ‘Dear Cathy and Claire’ page of the Jackie asking for advice on French kissing. The last time I had a ‘boyfriend’ he had acne, rode a chopper (pedal powered) and wore a school uniform. Even if your tastes run in that direction, toward the younger man that is, then he’s a ‘toy boy’ he’s still not a ‘boyfriend’. Ask Joan Collins. No, on second thoughts….

I would have to say that even ‘mon homme a Paris’ - see, not ‘boy’ but ‘man’ – describes me as his girlfriend, just like all the rest of them. Now, I certainly don’t find it insulting or objectionable, I just wonder why? Now I hate to generalise, and I certainly don’t want to psychoanalyse, but I think men think it makes them sound quite cool and still able to pull. It certainly sounds a lot more frivolous and flirtatious than ‘partner’ and could that be the core issue. Are men looking for fun while women want something a lot more serious? This is clearly turning into one of those ‘Mars’ and ‘Venus’ debates which means there’s no sensible solution except to say ‘huh, that’s men for you’ or ‘I just don’t get women.’

Actually wait a minute, I take that back. I may have just thought of the perfect way to solve this entire problem. Guys just marry all those lovely women and then it’ll be all 'husbands' and 'wives' and everyone will know were they stand. Otherwise, if you can’t get him up the altar then I guess we should remember that at least ‘girlfriend’ sounds better than ‘spinster’.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• |
• |