"Hi, I'm X's girlfriend."

So. The term "girlfriend" is something I've been thinking about lately as I'm transitioning over from being one person's "girlfriend" to another person's "girlfriend..." A transition I have a difficult time handling some days and which has been a source of tension lately, much to my dismay.

Now I'm SURE that this will get some of you ladies (and gentlemen) up in arms, but hell, this is MY blog not yours, so I can say what I want.

Being called someone's "girlfriend" makes my skin crawl. Not because I'm reduced to being a "girl" in this term. (The male version IS "boyfriend" so it ain't really a gender thing there.) It's that once you become "someone's girlfriend," you take on this fuzzy lack-of-definition. You become an appendage to this person, the asterisk that signifies you are his footnote. Not in HIS eyes, per se, but to the outside world. You become not "Lauren" but "X's girlfriend." You are no longer individual, but one half of some greater entity.

Ooh, some of you think, Being one half of an 'entity of loooove' is NEVER a bad thing. But it is... at least for those of us who want to remain individuals, who perceive a loving relationship not as a completion of each other but a COMPLEMENTING of one another. Completion implies that I'm not already whole, that I NEED this person to make me a fully developed, bad-ass human being. And I'd like to think this isn't the case--I'd like to think that I don't NEED someone else to be able to reach my full potential as a human being. I'd like to think I'm NOT wandering around, desperately hoping to score myself the man that will finally make me whole.

And the idea of being someone's "girlfriend" (as opposed to a guy being someone's "boyfriend") is a weightier ball and chain for females to carry than it is for a guy. Why? Well, sorta for the same reasons that we have the old double-standard that girls who sleep around are whores and guys who sleep around are champions. The term "boyfriend" implies to some degree that this individual has won the race, achieved his prize, CONQUERED. Guys don't lose out so much on their individuality by taking on this term. Women, however, become a shadow when they turn "girlfriend." They become this "other," the one-being-shagged, the old "ball and chain," the conquered. They are prize, but not winner.

Maybe I'm not being clear enough. The problem in my world today is this: I am a very independent human being. I don't like being shoved into boxes by other human beings. I have spent a lot of time in my life making myself strong and independent and creating myself as a strong and independent person in other people's eyes. So when I concede to becoming "X's girlfriend," it IS a concession. It is an undercutting of all I've struggled to create for myself. And it's not that I DON'T love X. Don't get me wrong. But I don't know why this requires me to wear a badge that says "I am X's girlfriend" in order for our relationship to have validity.

And maybe I AM partially at fault here. Perhaps I'm too leery of things--perhaps my love doesn't HAVE to undercut my strength as a woman. Perhaps my problem is that I see emotion, love, feeling to be a mushy thing, to be rubber instead of steel, in other people's eyes. And sometimes I get the feeling that, to openly declare myself to be smitten, head-over-heals, ga-ga over another person announces to the world that perhaps I'm not as strong as they might think. But as a woman, battling the stereotypes of what it MEANS to be a woman, I have to work double-hard sometimes to keep this non-stereotypical image of myself alive and kicking. And so I find myself resistant to labelling myself in this sorta way.

And dammit, I DO want to be steel. This DOESN'T mean that I have to be cold and logical and unemotional to do so though--"buildings and bridges are made to bend in the wind." But it also doesn't mean I have to stamp myself as "girlfriend." I want to maintain my own identity. I don't want to be the x in some equation that, lo and behold, ends up equalling 1. And maybe this is why I keep my private-life private, much to certain people's dismay. This way I can construct myself in others' eyes, decide (at least to a larger degree) how they will interpret and choose to read me.

And I don't want to be read as "girlfriend." I don't wanna be lumped under some term whose definition is vague and not under my control. I don't want people attaching preconceived notions of "what being a girlfriend means" to me. I don't want to have a title stamped on me that signifies ownership. I can love and be part of a healthy relationship without being reduced to that.



Now argue away as I'm certain you will... : )

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