Whats the definition of "boyfriend"?

A boyfriend is the guy you drop off at band practice before you go to work… assuming you can get him off the sofa you made him sleep on last night.

Exclusivity is a big part of it. The boyfriend is the person you expect to spend your day off with, the guy who will plan your birthday, the one who either takes you home to his family on Thanksgiving and Christmas, or the one you take home.

He’s also the one you call when you have a cold and need some Tom Yum delivered. And he’s the one you made a special present for Valentine’s Day.

He is not a fiance yet. But you might be thinking about that, and your friends will wonder. If you are not into marriage, you will eventually have a conversation about living together.

Hi @cryifiwant2 and welcome to Fluther.

I am a great believer in using dictionaries and not limited reach polls to determine what a word means. Here’s what The Merriam-Webster Dictinary says “boyfriend” means.

If we all just carry our own meaning of words, meaningful communication becomes impossible.

Now, if someone you “thought” was a boyfriend did you dirty, departing form the dictionary meaning of the word, then ask the question that is really on your mind.

Boyfriend is someone you are dating. To rise to boyfriend status, it has to be regular and probably exclusive.

The meaning of the term is quite fungible. It could mean anything from a friend who happens to be male, to a friend who is male (and gay), to someone who you have been living with for years and have children with but aren’t married to. I’ve seen it used in all those contexts and many in between.

A lot of people make a deal about dating and exclusivity. But some people have more than one guy they are dating regularly, but aren’t exclusive with. Other people have boyfriends they’ve never dated in real life. They only know them through the virtual world. People have boyfriends they have never kissed or even held hands with.

Usually, if people ask a question like this, they are asking if the relationship they have should be considered that of one with a boyfriend. If you are wondering that, then you have a boyfriend. If you want him to be a boyfriend, then you think of him as a boyfriend. All you really need is for him to agree that he is your boyfriend.

Which is my definition: a boyfriend is a male who agrees with you that he is your boyfriend.

someone that copulates with you hmm wait, that could also be a rapist.
someone that copulates with you with your consent hmm that, could also be a male prostitute
someone that copulates with you regularly with your consent hmm, that could also be a sex friend.
someone that copulates with you regularly with your consent and with whom you also participate in other social activities like going to a restaurant, parks, cuddling, playing videogames together or even live together, without being married yet.
Yep, I think that fits.

Boyfriend to me is defined by the couple. You may say he is my “boyfriend” but “he” may believe otherwise. I do not really think it is an exclusive word until it is defined by both partners. Boyfriend could be a friend of male gender. There is no set rules to the word boyfriend, heck my mother calls some movie stars her “boyfriends”, but as a partnership we make up those rules together and I myself think that is what defines the word “boyfriend”.

The concept I think is commonly ignored is the space-time continuum. If he asks for ‘space’ or ‘time’ often, he’s probably not a boyfriend. This is better explained at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacetime.

@theshillerdude Welcome to Fluther and thanks for a brilliant answer and the chuckles that it evoked.