Let’s partner up baby

Partner is a funny word. It can mean so many different things. You describe someone as your partner and what are you saying? Are they a business partner? Dance partner? Work partner? Heterosexual life partner? (God I miss Carlton Scott) Alone and free of context it is an ambiguous word. The Aussies have added another use to it just to keep you on your toes. They use it how Americans use significant other. It denotes someone in a gender, legal and living situation neutral manner who you are in a serious romantic relationship with. And in a nation where it is not uncommon for people to not get married, but instead opt for what I would call a common-law marriage, it is certainly a useful descriptor to have around.

The thing though is that it is used all the time. About the only time I have ever run into the term significant other in The States is in formal situations, like an invitation to a party, or when people are hesitant to put traditional labels on their relationships. Even for very serious marriage like relationship I more often hear people using the terms living together, cohabitating or live in boy/ girlfriend to describe the relationship. Significant other is only used when people don’t really want or need to know the nature of someone’s relationship. Partner however is used as a day to day descriptor in any number of situations.

I first ran into it when my boss was talking about his misses (another term thrown around a lot). They are not married, but have been in a very long term stable relationship, have lived together for years, and have two kids. What I would call a common-law marriage. He describes her as his partner. Other co-workers in the same situation use the exact same term. It isn't isolated to that however. On a radio interview I heard the interviewee asked what the worst thing he had ever done to a partner was. Based on the context and his answer I am sure in the US they would have said girlfriend. I also overheard a guy at a bar use it when getting his girlfriend’s purse back after leaving it there the night before. The oddest was when a co-worker was telling me a college story and he said “my ex-partner, or well I guess girlfriend to you. We weren't living together or anything.” Clearly he recognized that I wouldn't fully understand the term partner as he was using it and wanted to clarify.

Personally I kinda like it. It allows someone to describe their relationship without giving any details that may affect how people react to them. Things such as sexual orientation and cohabitation are kept private, as I think they should be. I will say it is still odd to hear and throws me for a bit of a loop since my American mind interprets it to mean a marriage like homosexual relationship. Just another word I am going to have to get used to having an alternate definition. Don’t even get me started on fanny or thong.