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Research

When I asked my grandmother what she meant when she called my book stupid, she reminded me that she was born in 1918. She told me that when she was old enough to “date,” there was no such thing as a “boyfriend.” “If a man wanted you, he would marry you.” Before I jumped up and tried to explain to her how things are different now, I asked myself, am I listening to understand, or am I listening just to reply—like most people do when someone is trying to sell them something other than whatever they believe in? I decided to live to fight another day, and I kindly thanked her for the conversation and went home. When I got home, I Googled everything I could about the word “boyfriend.”

The more I dug into researching the word, the more my mind was blown. I was at a loss for words. Here was this word that I had used ever since I was old enough to be able to afford to take a girl to the movies (which was age thirteen, by the way). This word was the reason why I always dressed nicely, why I went out of my way to talk to every pretty girl I saw. When I was first introduced to love, it was through the idea of “boyfriend.”

That idea changed when I opened the dictionary and looked it up, just like you’re supposed to do with any other word that you use, especially one you use to define your happiness, to identify the role of the most important person in your life not related to you. So many people use the word “boyfriend” and don’t even know what it really means. Let’s test a theory.

If you’re reading this, you have probably heard the word “boyfriend” before. I would push the envelope a little further and say that not only have you heard the word, you probably know what it means. So if you know what a word means, that means you know its definition. Where do we get definitions? The dictionary. Here are three sources, all of them saying pretty much the same thing; but for me, it was all about what they didn’t say.

boyfriend (boi∙frĕnd)

Noun

1. A male companion or friend with whom one has a sexual or romantic relationship.

2. A male friend.

Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition, copyright ©2015 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

boy·friend \boi· frĕnd\

Simple Definition of boyfriend: a man that someone is having a romantic or sexual relationship with

Source: Merriam-Webster’s Learner’s Dictionary

boy· friend

/boi/frend

Noun

1. A regular male companion or friend with whom one has a sexual or romantic relationship.

Synonyms: lover, sweetheart, beloved, darling, dearest, man, guy, escort

Source: Google Dictionary