Boyfriend

For other uses, see Boyfriend (disambiguation).

A boyfriend is a male friend or acquaintance, often specifying a regular male companion with whom one is platonic, romantically or sexually involved. This is normally a short-term committed relationship, where other titles (e.g. husband, partner) are more commonly used for long-term committed relationships. A boyfriend can also be called an admirer, beau, suitor and sweetheart.

Scope

A woman with her boyfriend at Alexanderplatz in March 1975.

A man with his boyfriend.

Partners in committed non-marital relationships are also sometimes described as a significant other or partner, especially if the individuals are cohabiting.

Boyfriend and partner mean different things to different people; the distinctions between the terms are subjective. How the term is used will ultimately be determined by personal preference.

A 2005 study of 115 people ages 21 to 35 who were either living with or had lived with a romantic partner notes that the lack of proper terms often leads to awkward situations, such as someone upset over not being introduced in social situations to avoid the question.

There is a significant difference between girlfriend and boyfriend, and girl friend and boy friend. In a strictly grammatical sense, a girlfriend or boyfriend is an 'individual of significance' with whom one shares a relationship.

There is a difference between the idea of boyfriend and partner. The idea of 'boyfriend' mainly has the same idea of 'dating.' It is like having a casual relationship with someone but not being committed. The term partner is short for life partner, meaning that they are a more permanent addition to your life rather than a boyfriend. Alexis.black (talk) 18:53, 23 April 2018 (UTC) Partners will take time to plan activities with you, and will want to physically touch you in non-sexual ways. Another example would be that boyfriends won't share secrets with you like a partner will. Partners will get excited about the things that you get excited about. You could catch your partner smiling at you when you're looking away. Albaker2020 (talk) 02:53, 2 March 2018 (UTC)I think that the biggest difference between a “boyfriend” and a “partner” is that a partner is there for it all. A partner represents a deep and actual commitment. A boyfriend can be someone that is in it for the long haul... but a partner is a part of you. There is a deeper commitment there. “For those of you who have ever loved, you know love is selfless. It endures the hardest battles and it puts up with the toughest of sacrifices, but it’s all worth it in the end. Love is a partnership, an adventure all in it’s own. An unbreakable bond between two people who are conscious of it and willing to maintain it’s strength; but just because you are in a relationship, doesn’t mean you are in love. Nor that you’ve found yourself a MAN. Let me remind you, there is a major difference between BOYS and MEN, GIRLS and WOMEN. There is a difference between a BOYFRIEND/GIRLFRIEND and a PARTNER.”

There are a lot of different reasons as to why someone would rather call their "boyfriend" their significant other or "partner." One main reason is that it is a reminder that there is equality in the relationship. Partner is a term that people use when they want to feel equal to someone like a partner in a group project at school. By using the term "partner" in place of boyfriend, you are acknowledging that superiority doesn't play a role in the relationship and that you are both equal to each other. Another major reason why "partner" has become more popular recently is because it is a gender neutral term. It doesn't specify how someone sexually identifies and it doesn't cause any assumptions about how people identify their gender. Albaker2020 (talk) 18:23, 15 April 2018 (UTC) Alexis.black (talk) 18:53, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Word history

The word dating entered the American language during the Roaring Twenties. Prior to that, courtship was a matter of family and community interest. Starting around the time of the American Civil War, courtship became a private matter for couples. In the early to mid 20th century in the US, women were often visited by "gentleman callers", single men who would arrive at the home of a young woman with the hopes of beginning a courtship. The era of the gentleman caller ended in the early 20th century and the modern idea of dating developed.

In literature, the term is discussed in July 1988 in Neil Bartlett's, Who Was That Man? A Present for Mr Oscar Wilde. On pages 108-110, Bartlett quotes from an issue of The Artist and Journal of Home Culture, which refers to Alectryon as "a boyfriend of Mars".

The term dating developed in America between the 1800s and 1900s. The term came from the idea of 'courtship.' The reason for the addition was that the number of partners that an individual could have before marriage increased during this time period. This caused the idea of 'courtship' to go from very serious to more casual and easy. Even though we consider 'courtship' as dating in today's society, it is important to understand that we have not left a courtship structure and replaced it with a dating structure. We have simply added the idea of 'dating' to the idea of 'courtship.'

At the turn of the 20th century, lower-class men and women started to use the the term 'date' to describe going out publicly rather than privatizing the relationship. Because of the entertainment industry advertising the idea of dating, it quickly moved up the socioeconomic scale and quickly became more popular. At the turn of the 1940s after World War 2, youth started to idealize the idea of promiscuous popularity. This is the idea that the more dating partners you have, the more popular you become. This is how the idea of dating that we know of today started to emerge. This caused the term "going steady" or "going out" to become significantly less ideal to the idea of popularity.

Synonyms

• An older man may be referred to as a sugar daddy, a well-to-do man who financially supports or lavishly spends on a mistress, girlfriend, or boyfriend.
• In popular culture, slang, internet chat, and cellphone texting, the truncated acronym bf is also used.
• Leman, an archaic word for "sweetheart, paramour," from Medieval British leofman (c.1205), from Old English leof (cognate of Dutch lief, German lieb) "dear" + man "human being, person" was originally applied to either gender, but usually means mistress.
• The term young man was at some periods used with a similar connotation. For example, in the 1945 film "My Name Is Julia Ross" the female protagonist, seeking a secretarial job, is asked if she has "a young man" - where in later films a similar question would have referred to "a boyfriend".

Although "boyfriend" and "partner" are two ways that are commonly used to reference a significant other in social settings, there are other words commonly used called terms of endearment. Alexis.black (talk) 18:53, 23 April 2018 (UTC) Terms of endearment tend to gravitate toward things that are related to taste like "pumpkin," "sugar," "lamb-chop." It is hard to determine exactly how and why these terms have evolved and originated. One thing we have seen is that terms of endearment have been traced back to 1290 with the term "sweetheart." This term was originally written as the two separate terms that they are today but eventually turned into one word which addressed someone a person one is in love with. Albaker2020 (talk) 18:23, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

See also

• Domestic partnership

External links

• EtymologyOnLine