Do you want to date a girl or a woman?
Today, I'd like to talk about word choice. In particular, I'm interested in the girl vs. woman and boy vs. man distinction.
It used to be that hearing anyone refer to an adult female as "girl" rubbed me the wrong way. Girls, to me, were underage and most certainly shouldn't be trolling the net for casual sex. "Woman", I grant you, is a little stuffy, but at least she's legal.
In the past couple of years, I've eased up on that a lot. I'm as likely to call an evening with my female friends "girls' night" as "ladies' night" and if I'm going out with a bunch of them, I'm probably going out with my girls.
Similarly, however, when I'm going out with a guy, I'm very likely to call him my boy. Or when I'm going out with someone new, it might be a new guy, or it might be a new boy. I fairly rarely call guys "men". Men are strangers; guys and boys are friends and lovers.
So, I'm pretty relaxed about the girl/woman thing, but a lot of women find it troublesome, and I do, too, sometimes. Here's a great example of a terrible use of "girl":
Good looking guy here girls - m4wHey girls. Here just looking for some fun during the week. Im a good looking guy. living right in the city with my own place. So girls get back to me if your interested in meeting up for some drinks and some sexual fun. Enjoy the rest of the day girls.
Okay, setting aside the fact that he vastly overuses the word, he's also kind of creeping me out with this whole idea. In this case, it sounds like he thinks of all women as "girls", and that ends up being diminutive and yucky. I don't mind when a guy calls a woman a girl, if he also refers to himself as a boy, or if he mixes it up.
In general, though, it's worth considering your use of girl/woman, because it's easy to go overboard with the familiarity implied with calling me a "girl", and the effect of that is rarely good. There are plenty of women who are more relaxed about this point than I am, but there are also lots who are more uptight about it. If you want to play on the safe side, be aware of your word choice and consider aging up, at least for starters.
Comments
I don't mind "girl" as long as the speaker doesn't mind the equivalent term being used to describe him or her. Sometimes, it's even kind of endearing in the way that can be. I kind of dislike "girls" as a description for a group, though. Conversely, I don't mind "ladies" for a group, but don't like "lady" for a person (as in "hey lady" or "looking for that special lady").
Posted by: Sarah T | July 10, 2006 6:17 PM
I agree with your feelings about "girl" with one added caveat: the term bugs me less in the 2nd person than the 3rd. If you (my potential or actual lover, fuckbuddy or boyfriend) call me a girl, that's generally okay, but if you start referring to other women as girls (or someone speaking OF me, rather than to me, refers to ME as a girl) I'm likely to bristle.
In other words "You are the girl of my dreams" I'll let slide. "I met this girl last night"...ew.
Really though, unless you know me, you'd best just stick with "woman" to be safe.
Posted by: Anonymous | July 10, 2006 9:23 PM