What Do You Call Her When She's Not Yet Your "Girlfriend?"

Yesterday, while not stressing out over my coming road trip with Miss Canada (her name might come out, it might not; the public sharing of personal info can understandably be a potential bone of contention—my least favorite kind of bone—but that's another blog post for another day), I related how I'm running out of nomenclature with which to refer to our relationship. There were some very colorful comments from readers, but some of my favorite basically said "dude, you're in a relationship, man up and call her your gf!" If it were only that simple.

Obviously, this decision is not mine to make. Taking steps in relationships takes two people. Life would be much simpler in the short run if they didn't (and would involve me running up to Natalie Portman and yelling at her "you're my girlfriend!") and then much more complicated (Hollywood divorces are a mess, I hear).

Fact is, we're not at the "boyfriend"/"girlfriend" stage, nor do I think we need to be. We've been hanging out for a month—granted, long distance, which can make everything more intense—why should we be in a rush to lock I down?

One reason would be the fact that it is mildly embarrassing to come up with names for what it is that we "are" (though not nearly as embarrassing as being corrected as to our status, e.g. "I'm not your girlfriend!").

Here's what I've been using so far:

My Lady Friend

Sounds like we are dating in the 1800s.

My Chiquita

Sounds vaguely diminutive, like she's a little kid, or only 3 apples high. Or even worse, that I think of her as a piece of fruit. Which, unless you are dating a Georgia peach, is hardly the metaphor you want to evoke, though I do like the nickname "Pumpkin."