| I agree with everything except that referring to someone as girlfriend is “reducing them to their role”. If anything, it’s adding information to your relation

| I agree with everything except that referring to someone as girlfriend is “reducing them to their role”. If anything, it’s adding information to your relations. She is not just Emma (what is a name anyway? Your argument could be followed until the end in which you can only say “that person”). She is Emma and also is your girlfriend. Would your mother be offended or feel diminished if you referred to her as “mother”? If anything she would be proud in most cases. | A lot of this is regional-cultural specific and generational. My mother's family is from the south east, for generations back, whereas my father is third generation in this country from Germany and the ways of introduction are, from grandmothers to parents to me, especially when we moved to the pacific northwest were amazingly different. I had friends call their mothers "Mommy" into high-school, which I thought was infantile and embarrassing and other friends call their parents by their first names, which made me nearly hide as I waited for them to be hit for the sheer disrespect. If I introduced my mother to my friends, I would never give her name, as that would be considered an insult, as "ma'am" was the appropriate title to be used at all times. Also, when in a formal or unfamiliar meeting, or a less than friendly meeting, my father would introduce my mother as his wife, as "ma'am" was what they were expected to call her, giving an implied layer of distance in the relationship. Not all relationships were treated as though they were going to be life long friendships. A certain decorum of formality was maintained which is lost to a sea of history. It isn't necessarily a bad thing.