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Home » The Vine

The Vine: February 18, 2009

Submitted by on February 18, 2009 – 7:25 PM106 Comments

Hi Sars,

This is somewhere between a language and a societal question, so I figure you’re the perfect person to answer it.

What’s up with straight women referring to their female friends as “girlfriend”?This is hardly a new or rare thing, but it’s always confused me.Most women I know don’t call their male friends “boyfriends,” or even “guyfriends,” and men certainly don’t do it ever. I called a friend on it recently and she couldn’t explain why she does it, so we decided to ask you and your readers.

It just seems so antiquated and a little sexist to me.And confusing since “girlfriend” usually has romantic connotations.What’s wrong with just “friend”?

Let’s Just Be Friends

Dear Friend,

I don’t really know where that comes from, and I didn’t really hear it much growing up, either.It’s probably used to describe the make-up of groups of friends to a third party, i.e. “a bunch of my girlfriends and I went to” blah blah, and maybe this is just a Jersey/mid-Atlantic thing, but I have noticed a very slight difference in the pronunciation of “girlfriend” when it means “a romantic partner” and “girlfriend” when it means “friend who is female.”The latter gets elided a little more.

I’ve also noticed that it’s often used by people I would consider a bit more traditional than myself, for lack of a better term — women who might not have as many gay friends, so that confusion would be immaterial; women who might have partners or spouses who disapprove of their spending unchaperoned social time with men; women who themselves don’t spend that much social time with men besides their boyfriends or husbands, “approved of” or not.This is a generalization that obviously won’t always apply; it’s just what I’ve observed, that a woman who would never dream of having a man in her bridal party or at her baby shower is probably more likely to use the term “girlfriend.”

Less traditional women may feel less of a need to delineate the genders of their friends, because it’s just assumed that they have male and female friends both, the male friends are in fact just friends, and the distinction isn’t worth making.

But I am not a speech anthropologist, so I can’t say for sure, and I don’t know where it really comes from or how it came into widespread use.I agree with you that it comes off a bit antiquated, especially when you could just say “my friend, Lisa” and solve the problem that way.

Dear Sars,

My cousin has been married for 10 months. Four months ago, she admitted her husband has been beating her soon after their wedding. They visited a marriage counselor once, who told them to go on an already planned vacation (which ended up with my cousin’s husband’s tearing the hotel phone out of the wall so she couldn’t call security, among many things).

After six months, she finally couldn’t take it anymore and went home (halfway around the world). Unfortunately, her husband returned to his parents’ house (in the same country) and both families met and my cousin and her husband reconciled. Her husband refused to admit to any fault, claimed my cousin provoked him into beating her, but says he won’t do it again.Her husband claimed he would continue counseling but has never set foot near another counselor. My cousin is beautiful, talented, extremely outgoing and friendly — yet he seems to have her completely convinced that he is the only man in the entire world for her and without him she’s nothing.

My question is — can an abuser change? She claims nothing has happened since they reconciled, but as she’s lied to us about this before, I don’t trust her. I don’t think he has changed, I don’t think he will change. Of course, I don’t have any training or know anyone else in a similar situation so this is just a gut feeling I have.

She doesn’t say much about her husband to me and I feel awkward constantly asking how things are going. Aside from going to work, she rarely leaves the house and she never sees anyone except her husband. I only live an hour away from her but every time we invite her over she always has a different excuse. From the sounds of it, she just does whatever he wants to keep him happy — which is actually what’s she’s been doing since they were married, but that never stopped him from beating her before. If he’s not beating her now, I’m afraid he’s going to start again and it’s going to be even worse than it was before.

My cousin is sleeping with the enemy

Dear Cousin,

Yes, an abuser can change.Can change.Doesn’t, always; probably won’t on his own.I can think of an example: a guy had a short fuse, which he lit with booze on a regular basis, and knocked his family around every now and then, but eventually got his act together and quit it for good — but he didn’t just look around one day and decide to stop acting like a shitbag.His wife and his kids all put their feet down and told him, look, you come home lit up, we’re calling the cops.You get yelly, we’re calling the cops.You do it twice, we’re changing the locks and you can live in the car.He realized they weren’t bluffing and that was the end of it.

But everyone’s different; every situation’s different.Some abusers are just bad, fucked-up people; others come from backgrounds or traditions where they learned this behavior, and then the behavior is reinforced accidentally by the victims because the victims, rightly, are afraid, of the abuse, of losing the relationship, whatever.Not to let abusers off the hook by any means at all, obviously; there is no hitting, period, and your cousin’s husband is responsible for his own crappy behavior.

My point is that, if your cousin is holding very still and trying not to screw up and make him mad, while that’s a perfectly reasonable response to a horrible situation, unfortunately it’s not going to change anything in terms of motivating her husband to get correct.It just tells him he has that power over her.

So yes, her husband could change, but if your cousin doesn’t let him know that that shit is done with, he’s going to keep doing it, because he thinks he can.All he learned from the prior dust-up was that, if he hits her and she finally leaves, he can apply pressure to get her back via the families.Staying in touch with her and checking in regularly, even if you think she’s not telling you the truth, is the very best thing you can do in the situation, so that if he’s abusing her and she wants to confide in you in the future, she feels like she’s not isolated.But as far as his changing on his own…based on what you’ve told me, I doubt that’s on the table here, I’m sorry to say.

Hi there,

I am in what some would call a pickle. It’s a long story (aren’t they all!) involving having to navigate my way through the minefield of a seriously catty PhD program after maybe getting a bit too close to my adviser (not in the sexy-pants way, in the party-tastic, blow-and-Rx-drugs sort of way). I will admit it, it was some of the happiest times of my little existence. And not just because I was coked out of my mind but it was nice to be around him and see how his mind worked, etc. Cheesy, I know. I also — like maybe folks when in a blaze of blow — make silly decisions like sleeping with my adviser’s quasi-friends (which always ended amicably)…but again maybe not so good to be in such a close social ring with the people who hold your fate in your hands.

Anyhow, it got ugly when one of my adviser’s actual friends developed a wicked bad crush on me (there were very sappy, unnerving emails written and many attempts to kiss me in bathrooms). I tried to handle it like a lady and remind her that we both had girlfriends and that we were awesome friends. I got the point right about then that maybe I needed to reel it in. I stopped hanging out so much and ended up breaking things off with the dating of the quasi-friend (and ended up in the throes of a do-over relationship with an ex that I just needed to kill me until I was a bit more dead).

All seemed peaceful and happy. I would occasionally hang out with adviser and crew. And harmony seemed to abound. This last summer two things happened, and in this order: 1) the do-over broke up with me in the most heinous and inhumane way (I am talking having to move in the span of two weeks, despite the fact that my name was also on the lease, because the ex just went wonky, but I shan’t regale you with the details) and 2) I had to start TA-ing for my adviser for a huge month-long intensive class that is taught every summer.

Despite the honor of it all, the gig pays like shit which meant I had to take up a desk job ASAP after teaching was over, and so the day after the class ended I found myself exhausted from the break-up/move and the pacing of it all…coupled with a new job and a ton of papers to grade. So, it took me a bit longer than the other TA to get them back to the students.

Now, that said, I always made time to meet with my students and advise them on their writing, etc., and I, of course, turned in their grades, but I really like to write tons of notes and bibliographies/reading lists for them and that was just taking some time. My adviser got a bit terse with me. I apologized profusely (explained that with a new full-time job, I was doing them as quick as possible) and had them in by the end of the week. He apologized for having to be so terse with someone he works with, I responded that I didn’t even take it personally and it was all in the past.

Except it doesn’t feel like it is! I get a total cold shoulder, I mean, he hasn’t even spoken to me since this email throwdown. Not even at the Christmas departmental party. And, the affect (or at least my paranoia) seems to be spreading. It seems like I am being pushed from the fold. It bears mentioning that the aforementioned break-up was with another student in the department. But, dude, she cheated on me and really put me through it during this break-up so I can’t imagine what she could be saying nasty about our break-up. Then again, she is kinda off and thinks that everyone is trying to kill her in some way or another, so who knows.

And this is sorta the point!I have no idea why I am being treated like a smelly cat. Or, how to deal with it. Do I roll with the “it’s only awkward if you let it be awkward” (slightly dissociative sure but whatever) and just greet everyone at the next departmental soiree (it’s in a week!) like nothing ever happened? Do I ask my adviser what is up? I have profusely apologized to him but that’s not working so part of me feels like talking is a bad idea. But, let’s face it, I am a worrier, I fret about everything and this is killing me.

I come to you for social graces and etiquette abounding!

Thanks,

Death by PhD

Dear Death,

Your colleagues think you’re an unprofessional drama queen who doesn’t observe boundaries and doesn’t complete work on time. And…you are that.Not that your advisor’s much better, but that’s not the letter I got, and this is your workplace.You snorted coke with your boss, you slept with his friends, you made some bad decisions in your personal life that negatively affected your work, and now he’s distancing himself, and while he should have done that ages ago anyway, it’s time for you to take the hint, not just from him but about the entire donnybrook.I took a reaming back in the day for calling in with the Sam Adams flu one too many times, and I was mortified and miserable, but I’d done it to myself and I knew it; you don’t seem to get it.You don’t get to shit where you eat and then go around asking everyone why your food tastes like shit.

I’m giving it to you sugar-free right now because you’re acting like you think your advisor’s coolness is the result of something entirely separate from everything else in your letter — like you inadvertently insulted his late mother or something.It isn’t.He’s tired of dealing with your shit and it’s time for you to suck it up.So, just in case you haven’t figured these things out for yourself: 1) don’t fuck your colleagues; 2) don’t fuck your boss’s colleagues; 3) don’t do drugs with your boss, or get really drunk, or consent to make-out sessions with his friends when you aren’t into them That Way; 4) don’t let your personal life splatter the hems of your co-workers; 5) do your shit on time and correctly without making excuses; and 6) if you, a human being like the rest of us, biff one of the first five things in this list, apologize, vow to do better in the future, and stop drawing attention to the goddamn situation.

Go to the party.Have one glass of wine.Talk about inconsequential or departmental things with a few colleagues.Make vague but firm excuses.Leave.Do not apologize anymore, do not worry the bone of the situation with any third parties, do not mention your ex to anyone, do not make a scene if she is present.Chin up, eyes forward, do your work, keep it professional.Do this day after day.Either your advisor will warm back up to you, at which time you should set firm boundaries for yourself about socializing with him and his friends, or he won’t, which who cares as long as he’s doing what he needs to do as far as supervising your work.

You are what you do; we all are.What you do now is grow up, and remember that this too shall pass, which it will, and you will be fine.

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106 Comments »

  • Ms. M. says:

    RE: My cousin is sleeping with the enemy –

    After re-reading my response, it sounds all over the map. Your post really hit me and I just wanted to say your friend is lucky to have someone who is on her side. Now for the map . . .

    If you’re interested, you could read up on the cycles of abuse. Isolation is never a good sign, but your story sounds very much like your cousin and her husband are in the “honeymoon” phase of a cycle. Abusers can go long stretches of time behaving like human beings before things go to hell again – usually when they are trying to get the partner to stay. Maybe he’s seen the light, maybe he is sincere and has every intention of being decent, but I wouldn’t bet the farm. It is difficult behavior to change, especially on your own. I have a friend who is a counselor and runs a program for abusers who are court-ordered to get counseling. The stats aren’t great, but they program is still going, so sometimes it helps. The behavior usually escalates and gets worse over time and chances are unfortunately good that your friend will get defensive if you push too hard.

    Back when I was volunteering at a women’s shelter I learned that spouses (women and men) leave an abuser an average of 7 times before they really end the relationship. Some get out sooner, some way later and there is no real way to help them unless they want it. My mom never left my dad and still, after my dad’s death, continues to seek out asshats because that is where she is comfortable. She hasn’t changed her behavior, either.

    Be there for her as much as she will let you – keep the boundaries you need to for your own sanity and safety, but let her know she has a place to go if you’re willing. Don’t stop believing in her – if he is truly abusive, he is probably systematically grinding her into the ground. She needs someone in her corner even if she acts like she doesn’t want it. It’s tough to be a friend in these situations because it can feel like you’re doing all the giving and she’s making all the excuses. Hang in there if you can stand it.

  • Linda says:

    Goooooood Lord.

    Not to pile on, because Sarah kind of handled it, but I have one thing I do want to add.

    Please try to stop thinking of this story as adorable, starting from the word “pickle” and moving forward. Being coked out of your mind is not adorable, nor is the lack of personal or professional boundaries, nor is the fact that you seem to favor romantic partners you will later describe as crazy or dangerous.

    It’s a problem. You haven’t made “silly” decisions; you’ve made *bad* decisions, and they’ve had consequences for people other than you. Honestly, it’s sounding like you’re the toxic person who’s somehow mysteriously at the center of every episode of weird, hurtful bullshit that happens to these people, and if they’re deciding they’re tired, then I can’t really blame them.

    (Example: How is someone getting the opportunity to make multiple attempts to kiss you in bathrooms? That doesn’t make you sound entirely victimized.)

    All I’m saying is: at the very least, take your situation seriously, and understand that other people don’t think this stuff is cute or funny, no matter how many times you say “sexy-pants” and “smelly cat.”

  • Matthew says:

    I’m not a cultural anthropologist either, but sometimes the “girlfriend” thing can be an appropriation of black and/or gay culture. Gay men will refer to each other as “girlfriends” and it’s something they lifted from black women (or television shows that have black female characters…). Meanwhile black women refer to each other as “girlfriends” and the operative word is “girl” as opposed to “woman”. If you are hanging out with a “woman friend” you are probably doing something mature like stuffing envelopes for political candidates or helping out at the church. If you are with a “girlfriend” you are probably drinking or gossiping or otherwise letting loose.

    So now a lot of straight white women are copying gay men (who are copying black women) thus the term “girlfriend.”

  • MsMolly says:

    Here’s the OED on “girlfriend”:

    1. A female friend; esp. a woman’s close female friend.
    1859 Harper’s Mag. Aug. 337/1 A demure little widow, much more gay and girlish than any of her girl-friends when she chose to forsake her rôle.

    2. A female with whom a person has a romantic or sexual relationship; a female partner or lover.
    1892 F. J. FURNIVALL Hoccleve’s Minor Poems Ded. p. iv, To the memory of Teena Rochfort Smith my much-respected and deeply-regretted girl-friend.

    So the use of the word in the first sense predates the second sense by about 50 years.

    Uh, and as far as Death by PhD goes, you pretty much nailed it.

  • c8h10n4o2 says:

    Death:

    Having already been through one Ph.D. program and now being on my second (what can I say; I’m an overachiever who doesn’t want to deal with loan payments yet) and being of a somewhat advanced age, I have to agree with Sars. Programs tend to be small, intense, and painfully inbred. Extra drama is a distraction and a pain in the ass that people will get fed up with.In my old program there was one girl who annoyed the hell out of all of us. She reaped the benefits thereof, but learned to reel it in and everyone got over their early annoyance. I’m currently working with a first year who refuses to get that message and even our advisor is totally over him and tonight I finally laid my feelings about the situation out to him, he agreed that he’s not to be trusted in anything (I rebuilt a major piece of equipment myself in my first month and don’t want him touching it because I’m pretty sure he’ll fry it immediately and kill my thesis dead) and is fine with me dealing with him by intimidation and apathy. I suspect he’s not long for the group, and nobody ever leaves this group. That’s because he’s not taking less and less subtle hints and learning that his behavior and actions are the problem.

    What to do? Even if it seems impossible, get a life outside of your department. It tends to keep spillover into your professional life to a minimum. And it is a professional life, even if it seems like a continuation of college at first. You’ll be depending on these people for recommendations and contacts at least in the near-term, and possibly for as long as you stay in this field. Always remember that. You can still have friends and an occasional drink, but if you really want to go nuts, take it outside. Don’t shit where you eat. If I couldn’t get away from school, I was in chemistry but did my drinking with the physicists or microbiologists. I learned some stuff tangentially related to my field that I wouldn’t have and helped me sound smarter at meetings and didn’t have the uncomfortable group meetings or department seminars to deal with. More importantly, I found a couple good friends totally outside of the system and compartmentalized that portion of my life.

    Don’t let a couple of bad years define your life for the future, but DO learn from them. It’s part of growing up and setting the stage for the next act.

  • marion says:

    Ah, that last response was especially Sars-tastic. Not that the others aren’t good – the second one is especially timely given events in entertainment news at the moment – but the blunt and specific answer to the last long and convoluted letter is great.

    I think the “girlfriend” term may also be somewhat of a regional thing. When I lived in the Northeast, I almost never heard people use it unless they were referring to their romantic girlfriends. Now that I live in the South, I hear it used all of the time. People down here do tend to be a bit more traditional about things such as having men at baby showers, but less “traditional” about women having only female friends and men only male friends, at least under a certain age and in my circles. Heck, I’ve even started using it, though I use it more as a shorthand to express something more efficiently: “John Doe, fancy seeing you here! Is Jane hangin’ with the girlfriends tonight?” (Okay, I don’t use “hangin’.” But you get what I mean.)

  • Andrea says:

    Heh, I work with older and more traditional women who use girlfriend for friend all the time. It was a bit of a hurdle when I actually was dating a woman and would refer to her as my girlfriend meaning partner and they’d just assume it was a friend and so I had to be way more specific than I would normally be in casual conversation to make the context more clear. Heh. Awkward.

  • anonymous says:

    Re: PhD. I just want to say that I once wrote to the Vine and got a Sars smackdown. At the time, I was a little bit surprised, but eventually I realized she was completely right, and I then took her advice, even though it hurt, and things got better fast. So, even though it might smart a little, speaking from experience, heed the call.

    And, your adviser screwed up here, too, but he has all the power, and you need to get your hood before messing up that relationship any further.

  • Clairezilla says:

    I always heard my grandmother say “girlfriend” in that context while I was growing up. I use it myself, and it does sound retro.

    When I use it, though, I’m usually referring to a BFF, and not just a casual female friend.

  • Kathleen says:

    Hrm. I say “my girlfriends”, and I do NOT fit into any of your presupposed categories. I have female, male, gay female, gay male, transgendered FtoM, MtoF, yeah, you get the idea.

    I use it specifically when I refer to activities that would only happen in the company of females (or others with similar interests), e.g. “My girlfriends and I decided that Nathan Fillion is marginally hotter than Scott Bakula.” I use the term “girlfriends” to explain why we were engaged in such an activity in the first place to someone who wasn’t there. “My friends and I” could include the CEO of my company or my academic advisor, both of whom probably have no opinion re: Fillion vs. Bakula.

    FYI

  • Jeremy Preacher says:

    I got terribly confused when, at the company office party, two girls in a row introduced both their girlfriends and their husbands in the same breath. It took me MONTHS to sort out which definition each of them were using.

  • Angela says:

    “Girlfriend” may be a Southern thing… I say it. But I only say it about people I’m really close to. Friend from work, “My friend Claudia.” Childhood friend who is more like a sister, “My girlfriend Nicole.” It’s a term of endearment…. it just signifies that the relationship is a very close one.

  • Jennifer says:

    On “girlfriend”: What Kathleen said. Though I will say, I have found myself using it more now that I’m in a work environment and work with women older than myself.
    @Death: To paraphrase Dan Savage (and any number of other people)–if you keep finding yourself in similarly destructive situations, the common denominator is…you.

  • Allie says:

    And this is why I say “girlymates,” which sounds absolutely ridiculous but causes no confusion.

  • Alie says:

    I just want to say to the cousin–if you’re worried that your cousin is avoiding you because you keep asking her about her husband, maybe lay off the explicit questions. If she feels like you’re badgering her (even if you’re not, but she’s extra-senstive about this topic) then she’s going to avoid you, and she needs to not lose people, to not be isolated in case something happens, and most importantly to not FEEL isolated.

    So go see a movie with her, go get some ice cream, talk about random shit that has nothing to do with domestic violence or her relationship with her husband. Be her friend, in other words, without (letting her know that you’re) constantly worrying about her. Every now and again, check in to see how it’s going in the relationship department, maybe once say something like, “Listen, I’m worried about you etc, but know that I am here, like FOR SERIOUS HERE, whenever and however you need me. Do not forget that. You have my number. Use it if you need it. For serious. Now let’s go get some ice cream and buy shoes.”

    That way, when she’s ready to leave, or even just to talk, you’re there and she has you as a friend, without the pressure of her feeling like you’re judging her for not leaving him, or for going back to him. Do not ever let her think that you are judging her–this is really hard, btw, even if you’re trying not to, or think you aren’t, judging her, simply because the language our language has for domestic violence tends to fault the victim. So be aware of that trap and don’t fall into it, because any hint of judgment on your part will leave her feeling isolated.

    Best wishes. I hope things work out.

  • FloridaErin says:

    Every time I try to use “girlfriends” to describe my girls who are friends, it just feels weird, so I stopped trying. I think you hit the gay-friendly nail on the head as far as who uses it and who doesn’t. I have a whole lot of girls who are friends who have romantic girlfriends, so that’s where my brain goes first. If someone I don’t know well takes about their girlfriend, I’m probably assume in my head that she’s kissing the person until I hear otherwise.

    Also, “Sars smackdown” needs to be trademarked.

  • Jennifer says:

    Not to pile onto PhD but another thing I noticed was that LW seems a lot less literate than I would expect a PhD student to be. Then again, I came out against serial commas, so what do I know? Heh.

    I feel horrible for Cousin’s cousin, but, unfortunately, Cousin won’t be able to do much to help until/unless her cousin gets fed up and decides to leave. I agree with everyone who said that the best thing she can do right now is make it clear that she is there for her. Abusers rarely reform, but abusees often get fed up and decide to make a break. Support at this point is hugely important.

    Anon, you know we’re all dying to know which letter was yours!!

  • Kate says:

    Just putting in that I’m a early 20-something living in San Francisco with approximately 38947239874 gay friends, straight male friends, lesbian friends, and plenty of “girlfriends.” I dunno why I call them my girlfriends, I just do it; it does depend on who I’m talking to. For me I generally use it to indicate when I’m spent doing an activity that is going to be girls-only (like a “girls’ night out”) or perhaps something ridiculously froufy and possibly leaning towards very hetero-normative activities, like us all sitting around painting our nails. This would be like, “A bunch of my best girlfriends and I got together and watched a crap-ton of movies and ate chocolate and it was GREAT.”

    Just my two cents.

  • Catherine says:

    Not to pile on PhD, but Sars is absolutely right and I think you might want to explore whether you have a drinking/drug problem. The kind of self-destructive-but-somehow-you-think-you’re-a-victim-of-the-world thing you’ve got going is very typical of addiction.

    Regardless, people think about you a lot less than you think they do because everyone is essentially self-absorbed, so if you clean up your act, you will regain some semblance of respect eventually, because in the end, no one really cares, they just don’t want to deal with the drama.

  • dimestore lipstick says:

    I stopped using “girlfriend” to refer to my two best friends, because it got confusing for people who didn’t know us very well. Since they are out as a couple, and I am an old, straight, married broad, none of our acquaintances could figure out what we meant when we used it.

  • Niki says:

    Regarding the whole “Death by PhD” thing, I’m currently a PhD candidate (defending soon! yay!) and I have to say Sars et al. are completely in the right. I’m perfectly friendly with my advisor, but given that in the end he has a significant say over whether or not I get the degree I’ve spent the last five and a half years pursuing, that it would be completely inappropriate for him to know if I do drugs or for me to know if he does, let alone to do drugs together. Moreover, the sleeping around your department/colleagues strikes me as a horrible idea (I’ll admit that I am married to someone with a master’s degree in my field and that we took classes together, and I know a few other similar couples). I would be incredibly uncomfortable knowing that my advisor in particular, but also other professors and even other PhD students, had that kind of insight to my sex life.

  • Diane says:

    @marion – having been born and raised in the South, your description kind of nails the usage my generation (X, that is) would recognize. I grew up with all sorts of friends, and by high school I had to “explain” which friends were which when discussing them – so if I was telling my parents I was heading out with multiples, rather than listing names, it’d be “the guys, me and Tracy” or “my girlfriends” (no special inflection or pronunciation, and no preciousness intended). I never heard my mom or grandmother talking about girlfriends, but during her widowhood my mom did start talking about ‘the girls’ from time to time. For her, that was a reflection of the absence of her accustomed male partner, and it was a little sad actually.

    But for me it’s largely as marion put it – just a descriptor, nothing hip or traditional or age-diminutizing or unconsciously conformist.

    At this point in time, most of my truly close friends are in other cities, so the very occasional night out with my female friends does get a highly arch description as “girls’ night out” if I have to mention one. But I rarely participate in the old group dynamics, so really “girlfriends” has fallen out of my usage. It was useful at a given time, and it could be useful again at some point. But it’s never carried, for me or (any of) my friends, any connotation aside from sex, and even that is only a clarifier, not any kind of value judgment.

  • Jo says:

    I’ve used “girlfriend” to refer to close female friends, probably because my mom does. (She is from the part of Indiana right on the border with Kentucky, so while she’s technically not southern, people a 10-minute drive away are.)

    I’m a straight white girl in the Pacific Northwest with lots of LGBT friends, but I think I picked that up from my mom, not from the gay boyfriends.

    Now that I think about, I only use the term in the plural “I hung out with my girlfriends” or “one of my girlfriends,” but that’s not intentional. And I use it to describe situations that are stereotypically girly like slumber parties or going to chick flicks.

  • Diane says:

    Oh, oh, oh – AND …

    Just as often as I’ve ever used “girlfriends” to delineate the gender/sex of my friends, I have also always just used “the guys” to refer to ALL my friends – and that has never gone out of style. Sometimes the clarifier just isn’t relevant or necessary.

  • Georgia says:

    Re: “girlfriend.” I distinctly recall the first time I heard someone use this term to mean a female friend. I was five years old, my aunt said it, and I remember thinking: “Oh, so THAT’s why she divorced my uncle.” I was wrong. Heh.

    Re: PhD. I know this is a very minor point given the letter, but: “I really like to write tons of notes and bibliographies/reading lists for them and that was just taking some time.” Wait, you’re late getting the papers back and this is just something you … like to do? As in, don’t have to do? As in, work you could have skipped in order to hand the papers back on time? I don’t understand.

  • bossyboots says:

    Put another way, Death, your actions have turned you into That Guy in the eyes of your advisor and colleagues. You aren’t invisible – people actually see and remember, to varying degrees, all of this crap. I don’t disagree with @Catherine, people don’t pass their days thinking about it, but this drama queen-y toxicity is part of their association with you in their minds. Sars and others are right – you have to pull your shit together and start acting like a professional person – but you also have to recognize that you are going to continue to be That Guy to some of these people. Them’s called consequences, real ones. In a perfect world, people would always recognize our fix-it jobs on ourselves and allow a new association to replace the old mess that previously hung over our heads. Sometimes, though, the old labels stick around and that’s just tough.

    And please don’t fall into the old “oh it’s academia and it’s all a big kindergarten!” excuse land. It’s still your professional arena – act like it.

  • Emerson says:

    Good advice to “Death by PhD” from Sars and Linda and everyone. I’ve been self-absorbed too. Not to be too Calvinist, but you will only benefit from being heavily mortified–and I think you knew that when you wrote this. Good for you for being honest, at least. When you come back to society as a grownup, you’ll find it’s so, so much better (and I’m still in the process, obviously, if I’m commenting on advice columns at work).

  • BKU says:

    I agree with Angela when it comes to saying “girlfriend”. I use it to describe my best friends from school, the ones I’ve known most of my life. I wouldn’t use it to describe a more casual friend.
    I’m Southern, for what it’s worth, but was raised by Northerners

  • Claudia says:

    I too use ‘girlfriend’ to refer to close friends, something I probably picked up from aunts and friends over the years. Since none of my gay friends refer to their partners as boyfriends or girlfriends, it’s never really caused much confusion. If someone does take away the wrong impression from me referring to ‘my girlfriend in Jackson’ or whatever, it is of little consequence.

  • Thomasina says:

    @marion, Angela, and Diane: I was raised in the deep South (also part of GenX) and seem to have had the exact opposite experience: I had never heard anyone use the word “girlfriend” to mean anything other than “female romantic partner” until I went to college in the Northeast. It seemed to me like my dorm housed a disproportionately high percentage of lesbians until I realized that when those women were talking about their girlfriends, they didn’t necessarily mean that they were sleeping with them. Everyone I knew at home just said “friend” when that’s what they meant.

  • honest abe says:

    Dear Death,

    Maybe I hear something that everyone else is not: you did straighten up your act early on and it seems like thta is why you are a bit confused/nervous. By your own admission you backed of the coke and booze and when called out for being a wreck about getting that paper back, you did so in a week. And you earnestly apologized. Good on you!

    It is hard to see your faults and it seems like you faced them head on.

    The question now is how to re-enter the fold withough being being a wallflower and without being overly apologetic. My suggestion: remember that you didn’t get to any of these places alone but it is your respocibility for acting differently. So, saddle up my brave friend and look people in the eye, say hi, make conversation about your work, or whatever and put all of your emphasis on being smart.

    To the rest of you: a bit of empathy goes a long way! This is an ettiquette column not a judgement column. And, anyway, coming back from a good fuck-up is an art…that what was death was seeking advice on.

  • Caitlin says:

    @Thomasina…I was born and raised in the deep south and was going to say exactly the opposite. I’ve never thought twice about women saying, “My girlfriend and I went to the movies last week,” or something similar in an entirely platonic way, as I’ve heard it all my life. I was going to suggest that it seems to be an entirely regional thing. I would second what BKU said.

    and @sleeping: I couldn’t say it any better than Mrs. M.

  • MCB says:

    Re: PhD — I’m also a graduate student in the later years of a doctorate in the humanities, and although I doubt that I know the writer personally, the letter rang some bells. Graduate school tends to attract a certain number of people (not a huge number, but a noticeable one) who come there in the mistaken belief that academia is more tolerant of “free-spirited/uninhibited” behavior (e.g. screwing your co-workers, turning in your work late, missing meetings, talking constantly about your sex life, and doing coke with your boss) than other lines of work. They sort of view graduate programs as utopian communes where everyone sleeps with everyone with no hard feelings, and there are never any deadlines. And, as the writer’s adviser shows, sometimes these people manage to become professors.

    The thing is, most other grad students and professors don’t find that kind of stuff cute or cool or “free-spirited,” and will not want to cultivate personal or professional ties with someone who creates drama wherever he/she goes. Even in academia, acting like an “unprofessional drama queen who doesn’t observe boundaries and doesn’t complete work on time” is going to affect your colleagues’ view of you, and not in a good way.

    PhD, I think Sars’s advice for repairing your rep is spot-on. The only piece of advice I’d add is this: is there another professor in the department, preferably an older professor who is out of touch with the gossip and may not know about all of your shenanigans, for whom you could TA? Putting in a solid semester of getting all your grading in on time and being a consummate professional could help restore your reputation and give you a supporter in the department who doesn’t view you purely as “the one who did all that coke with Professor J.”

  • K. says:

    I’m black, GenY, and Northeastern born, raised, and residing and don’t refer to my female friends as girlfriends. My grandmother did (and she lived in the same Northeastern city all 74 years of her life) – if I was going to a sleepover she’d make reference to “a bunch of girlfriends getting together.” But then I worked with a white woman a little younger than I, from Long Island, who talked about her bridesmaids being “her two sisters, a cousin, and a couple of my best girlfriends from college.” So basically I don’t use the term, but it doesn’t give me pause when others do. And you can usually hear a difference in the way it’s pronounced when it means “female platonic friend” vs. “romantic, sexual partner.” Not something I could pinpoint, but it’s there – I’ve never gotten confused about which meaning was intended, even if the speaker is a lesbian. I do say “girl,” as in “girl, please” or “those shoes are cute, girl.”

    Re: Ph.D, I have a tendency to go the OTHER way at work – like, to barely socialize, because I have this … phobia, kind of, about not being taken seriously. I have a pretty strict rule about not dating people I work with. Maybe it’s because I’ve been the only person of color (ANY color) in some work situations and I worry that people already take me less seriously because of that, I don’t know. I loosened up a little when someone told me they were afraid of me. I’ve heard for years that people find me intimidating, but I don’t want people AFRAID of me, so I learned to talk about American Idol now and then, and made friends at work (some of whom I am still friends with, even after leaving jobs). But … doing coke with your boss is a completely foreign concept to me. One of my best friends is in a Ph.D program with like 10 other people – her department is tiny. And one of HER friends in the department was in a messy-ish relationship with another member of the department, and finally my friend was like, look, I know he dumped you in a gross way, but you have to get it together because it’s fucking things up for everyone. And she did and eventually got over him and moved on. I’d say the same thing here: while yes, people work a lot and that makes it hard to socialize with anyone but people from work, the work still needs to get done and your colleagues need to respect you. I’d have a hard time doing that here. I agree with bossyboots – you’re That Guy right now, and to get out of that place (or not; some people have probably written you off altogether, sadly), you have to start being defined by more positive actions.

    On the plus side, in high school I had an English teacher who was also a Ph.D candidate and he wrote pages of comments on papers. I loved it, even if sometimes every section had gotten their papers back except ours.

  • Margaret in CO says:

    “You don’t get to shit where you eat and then go around asking everyone why your food tastes like shit.”
    Marry me, Sars. I may cross-stitch that into a sampler!

    I refer to my friends as “my buddy so-n-so” but if we’re in a pack, those are my “girlfriends” – I only seem to use it in the plural form. Weird.
    (great question, Friend!)

    Cousin, I agree with everyone. Stay close, keep your ears pricked, be ready to rescue your cousin the second she reaches out for help. You may have to do it more than once, but don’t lose hope. He not only beats her, he ruins her self-esteem and confidence so that she feels weak and helpless without him. Total control is all part of the abuse. So is isolation from her support, so be prepared for him to say she is no longer allowed to see you, ever. See her anyway, she needs you. You are a good cousin. I wish every battered woman had a friend or a cousin like you. (And I would issue steel baseball bats and pitchforks to each of you, and form some angry mobs & start some murderous rampages, but that’s just my fantasy.)

  • Another PhD Student says:

    I was curious to see what the responses to Death would be because… holy cow. My adviser ain’t perfect, but she would never even consider being in a situation involving (a) advisees and (b) illegal drugs. Or (a) advisees and (b) friends sleeping together.

    I am speculating here, but I am guessing that yes, Death’s ex is talking smack, and probably the rejected friend is talking smack to Death’s adviser, and given that Death’s adviser does not appear to have a record of good judgment and respecting professional boundaries either, neither of those circumstances are helping Death’s reputation within the department.

    My advice to Death would be: (1) Listen to Sars and Linda. (2) You brought this on yourself, but not all of it. (3) Do what you need to do on your end to create a professional reputation for yourself, but realize that your adviser acting professionally in response is by no means guaranteed. (4) Find someone — preferably in the department; if not, outside it — with whom you can have a professional mentor-ish relationship (note: this is not the same as a friendship — it’s a type of friendship). Because even long after you have begun acting professionally, there will still be potential pitfalls, and even the sanest among us need guidance remaining professional.

  • Liz C says:

    I’m loving the deconstruction of “girlfriends.” (I’m a bit of a linguistics nerd.)

    Question to those folks who use it or hear that usage a lot: is it used to delineate among female friends? In my lifetime I’ve had a pretty big circle of female acquaintanceship–school friends, college roommates, and I work in an education field that skews female, so 80% of my co-workers are women, and then there are female friends of friends, sisters friends, etc. So I can see using “girlfriends” to describe the “inner circle” of close friends. E.g. “Friday after work, I’m going out for drinks with my co-workers, and then my girlfriends and I are going to the movies.”

  • Tisha_ says:

    I’ve said used “girlfriend” to describe my female friends. But, I will say “the girls” when saying something like, “I’m going out with The Girls on Saturday night.” or whatever.

    If I am just talking about my best friend of one of my best friends, I’ll say, “My friend and I are…”

  • Tisha_ says:

    please change “said” to “never”. LOL

  • Coley says:

    Re: PhD

    I agree with Sars, except maybe don’t have even the one glass of wine. You might be tempted to overindulge to compensate for any awkwardness.

  • Linda says:

    @Abe: Nowhere in the letter does it say she’s laid off the coke and booze. I wish it did.

    Interestingly, I showed this letter to a friend last night, and his reaction was, “That letter doesn’t sound like it’s asking for advice. That letter actually sounds more like she’s bragging.”

  • Elizabeth says:

    @honest abe: re “To the rest of you: a bit of empathy goes a long way! This is an ettiquette column not a judgement column.”

    Umm… can it be a *little* bit of a judgement column? Cause… look, sometimes shit deserves judgement, y’know?

    Also, that’s more fun :P

  • KPP says:

    @Cousin This maybe be useless, or worse, harmful, advice (maybe other TN people know), but should you give your cousin an “emergancy” kit? Not a white metal box, but a cell phone that either calls 911 or that you maintain with some pay as you go minutes that she can hide in the house. Or maybe an envelope with cash and phone numbers/address in it with safe houses and local bus/train/taxi service (no names, just addresses in case the husband finds it). You could give it to her one day and say something like, “This is in case you’re in a really tight spot and need help. You can call me or if that’s not fast enough, call one of these numbers or go to one of these places. There’s money and numbers for friends/cab/bus/whatever. Then call me. Put it somewhere very safe. I won’t ask about it, but you can talk to me about it whenever you want.”

    Otherwise, as others have said, continue to try to engage her so she has a friend and family member still there when (hopefully) she makes a decision to leave. It sounds really difficult. Maybe you can get in touch with a local women’s shelter and get advice about what you should do (and remember, there’s only so much you can do, don’t get lost in it yourself).

  • LDA says:

    PhD- I think it is also possible that your advisor has realized they made a mistake having you party with them and has now backed off. You may think they are unrelated, but perhaps your advisor thought you felt comfortable turning work in late because you guys are buddies and do drugs together.

    You have to realize you involved yourself with people who also had bad judgement. It’s not like you can say ” Yes, my advisor may have heard nasty rumors from me about my ex but she would never use them to judge me in a professional setting” because your advisor also doesn’t have any concept of professionalism or boundries. Stay away from people like this- you can’t count on them to do the right thing in professional situations.

    I agree with Linda and everyone else who said the letter sounds like you think this is a funny, cutesy story that happened to you, and not a giant mess you created and are now suffering the consequences of.

    “Shan’t”?…………honestly, it isn’t cute.

  • Laura says:

    My grandmother used to refer to my friends as “girlfriends.” It always seemed to imply that a girl/woman has two types of friends: just one Boyfriend (with a capital B), but lots of girlfriends.

  • death says:

    This is “Death. To relieve your “fears” I have lain of the coke and am no more than a social drinker now. I thought that was apparent in the line: “I got the point right about then that maybe I needed to reel it in.” And , I may add that this was long before I screwed up by not returning my papers back on time (due to the stress of starting a new job, dealing with a breakup and moving in a short time span).

    If it wasn’t clear, I do get the errors I have made. And, I did turn the papers in ASAP once reprimanded. I wish it hadn’t come to that, but it did and I thought I handled it the best I could. If I could relive the situation I would have quickly scribbled comments and given the papers back the day after they were given to me.

    And, “Linda” trust me I was seeking advice. This is a very hard situation to navigate and I, personally, don’t think there is anything to brag about. My question was very serious: how do I knowing I have made a few mistakes, right them and move on. Trust me, I have judged myself enough, that is after all what academics do best.

  • death says:

    Dear “LDA,”

    The last thing I think this is is cute. I did not want to sound whiny or like I didn’t understand that there are maybe things worse happening in the universe and world than my petty drama.

    Oddly, I wonder if I had sounded more whiny would everyone’s comments be different?

  • bossyboots says:

    “I have judged myself enough, that is after all what academics do best.”

    Oh come ON. Everything else notwithstanding, that sentence unpins any attempts you may make to convince anyone else that you are grasping this situation with sufficient introspection.

  • meg says:

    Re: PhD – I think there’s something to be said for finding the balance between avoiding crazy self-destructive behaviour and not caring how things she’s fine with play out with other people. That is not an easy distinction to make, to be sure, but I think searching for it removes the easy impulse to cave to people’s judgments of your lifestyle which have more to do with their opinions than your own. The drinking and the coke and the sleeping with inappropriate people all has an obvious potential for badness, but I don’t think it is definitively bad in and of itself. It’s how she feels about it, it’s the degree to which it impacts not so much how people see you but how people see you as a professional in your actual work environment.

    If you learn not to care so much about stupid gossip and focus on not giving anyone a job-related reason to castigate you or your work, the other stuff will mostly deal with itself. Certainly in a perfect world, we would all have two completely separate spheres for work and play but for most of us that isn’t realistic. More important, in my view, is getting ok with your activities in your own head and then mitigating the problems of the personal interacting with the professional to the degree that you can.

  • Angela says:

    @Liz C: I think your description is spot on. In my mind the usage is reserved for very close friends – I can think of about four people I would refer to as “my girlfriend.” And I wouldn’t say “my girlfriend so-and-so” unless I’d known the person for a very long time, or felt very close to her. I know what people mean about the usage sounding dated or traditional, but to my mind, it’s just a sweet way to denote a close bond, almost a sisterhood. And just for census-taking purposes, I’m white, 31, and am not necessarily a traditional chick, at least not a chick in the old-fashioned-suburban-mom-with-no-gay-female-friends mold. But I did grow up in southern VA. Fiddle-dee-dee.

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