chrisu

i was confused when i started talking to native englishspeakers years ago. females mentioned "girlfriends" and were offended when i supposed that meant they had a romantic relationship with a girl. that's what we learned in school. "friend" is just a friend, male or female - girlfriend/boyfriend is someone you're in a romantic relationship with.

it's not exclusively used that way (someone should tell my former teachers) and i'm ok with that. i think. can't change it anyway.
but:
i prefer consensual non-monogamy and am panamor. my definiton of relationships differs from many people's definiton. i have sexual friendships, nonsexual romantic relationships, sexual romantic relationships and some in-betweens. the border between friendship and love is fluid and it might happen that i call someone a close friend and a lover on the next day.

i mention a male partner pretty often. he's what some people would call my primary - we live together and plan to stay a couple until we're old and wrinkled.
sometimes i mention a girlfriend. will she be seen as "just" a female friend? none of us cares what individual people think but we want our lifestyle to be present in society in general. and therefore it has to be clear that we are more than friends. we love each other.

so.. what am i supposed to call her?