Girlfriend or Girl Friend

My girlfriend I just recently moved together to the Midwest. We moved here after spending a year in a long distance relationship, for LWB to attend graduate school and for myself to find a new job. When we moved here I decided that I wanted to be as open as possible about my relationship, I did not want to hide it. As I made friends at work, I, as well as LWB, began to realize that many people here referred to their best girl friends as "girlfriend." The same way that my grandmother does.

In the past, I have referred to LWB as my girlfriend, and people got it, and nothing more needed to be said. However, here when I introduce LWB as my girlfriend people just assume she is my friend, and nothing more. This confusion has proved difficult, for the both of us. We do not want to use the term Partner. It's not for us, and I don't feel as though we should change how we chose to label ourselves just because people are confused. About six months ago LWB tried to come out to her co-worker and friend, who she spends almost all of her time with when she is at school. After stating she had a girlfriend, who also lived here with her, and LWB said she was sorry for not telling her friend sooner. Assuming that her friend understood this, she talked about me, and where I was from etc. After some brief conversation, LWB began to realize that her friend did not actually get it. She just thought I was a good friend. Shit, this posed a problem, how do you come out to someone twice, that just sucks. Especially someone, who if she really looked at it and thought about it, she would have known that LWB and I are more that just friends.

Another incident of this has happened many times at my work. This past weekend we went to a fundraiser at my school and I introduced LWB to people as my girlfriend, hoping that would just get it. Some we think did, and then we'd get the question, "are you girls roommates?" No, we are not roommates, we are lovers.

This post is all over the place. I just needed to get it out, because it's frustrating.

Thanks for reading! Peace!