Empty Nest Mom Dictionary, Pt. 1

I picked my daughter up from the airport yesterday and already I have been reminded of just how out of touch I am with today's language. I was told in no uncertain terms that Chris is not her boyfriend...they are just seeing each other. She informs me that I need to be very clear on this especially since I am spreading the gospel to empty nest Moms all over the world on my heavily-trafficked blog. I smile at her and say, yes, of course dear. But she is unaware of my arsenal of new language sources I have at my fingertips (literally).


When the teens are still living in the house, you hear the accepted words and can figure out their meanings by the way your kids use them. But once they leave the house you can forget which terms are okay to use, which ones you should know but should never use yourself and which words are no longer acceptable. I cannot imagine my divorced friends telling me they hooked up with so-and-so last weekend and I doubt they see a difference between seeing and dating someone, for instance. So, today I start over.....


If you haven't discovered The Urban Dictionary yet, you should. But, be prepared to get a little frustrated and you may even leave the site more confused than before you clicked over! Take the word "Boyfriend" for example. There are over 61 definitions for that particular word. My advise is to only read the 3 definitions with the most 'votes'. Here are the top three for the word 'boyfriend':

1.
boyfriend 1720 up, 428 down
a great guy who make you feel good bout urself... a protector, and ur best friend
keep ur hands off my boyfriend, bitch! he's mine!
by Temptrezz Oct 13, 2003 share this 4 comments

2.
boyfriend
1050 up, 340 down
Non-essential male counterpart. However, with the aid of a magical diamond attached to a golden ring, the boyfriend may transform into a more revered creature named "husband."
My boyfriend proposed last night; he's the most amazing man I've ever met. Note: the usage of "man" here indicates status raise.
by marm Sep 25, 2003 share this add comment

3.
boyfriend
723 up, 116 down
A male whom a female begins a relationship with. He is not essential to making the female a better person, but more so a person she can depend on for emotional support, sexual comfort, or life lessons. 1)A boyfriend, depending on how the girl feels about him can make a girl feel beautiful, special, a better person, and dependant on the happiness she recieves from him if he is a proper man. 2)A boyfriend can also be an enemy that the female cannot get herself away from because she feels as though she "needs" him, even though he may cause her physical, emotional, or psycological pain. 3)A boyfriend can be a wonderful or a horrible thing, but either way, they are always welcome
1)Hey, this is my boyfriend, and I love him to death 2)My boyfriend isn't so bad, you just don't know him like I do
by Melissa Jan 14, 2005 share this 1 comment

On the contrary, if you are 'seeing someone', this has only one meaning:

1.
seeing someone
58 up, 5 down
'Unofficially' going steady with someone. Dating without the boy/girlfriend 'label'. Is sometimes used to describe a relationship where individuals are having casual sex and are not actually 'item'.
Guy- "Do you have a boyfriend?" Girl- "No, but I'm sort of seeing someone"
dating seeing somebody boyfriend relationship sex by Jamzy Feb 15, 2008 share this add comment

WTF??! To this old Mom, 'seeing someone' sounds more intense and tight than having a 'boyfriend'. And having casual sex and not actually being an item in the same sentence is something I do not even want to discuss right now. I continue my education by moving to Wikipedia....

The term for boyfriend is simple enough:

Boyfriend is a person's regular male companion in a romantic or sexual relationship[1], while the term "boy friend" (note the space) can refer to a male non-romantic and non-sexual friend.

Trying to find the meaning for 'seeing someone' is anything but simple! The first entries took me to the TV show, Desperate Housewives, and how one of the character used this term, so I did not bother to read it.

When Laura was defining this relationship to me, should I have asked if she was placing a space between boy and friend? Also, Wikipedia provides a paragraph of the scope of the word, the history, etc, etc. Don't go there, it'll just mess you up!

My final source is my girlfriends (meaning, possibly out-of-touch friends who are female and have children with similar ages of my own). They were a better source when the kids were in high school. There are regional difference to the meaning of these words, you know! The collective knowledge is she is dating this boy, as we would have called it back when we attended college.

Anyway, it really doen't matter because Laura has informed me that I shouldn't be so curious..so nosey about this topic of her status with Chris or Tyler or anybody else for that matter. Well, you know how I respond (in my head) to her: I can be as curious, as nosey or my favorite word (look it up!), as INTERESTED as I want to be when it comes to someone that I have delivered into the world from "the hole between my legs" (acceptable Google AdSense language).

Still, it's fun to be educated using these new sources!