If you are involved with a girl and the two of you are ever in a situation where you have to introduce her, you will run into problems if you haven’t thought about how you will introduce her.
Figuring out when (or even if) to introduce her to other people as your “girlfriend” can be tricky. It might involve a few conversations you’re scared to have but talking this out with a girl you’ve been seeing will help you avoid awkward moments that are sure to hurt whatever it is the two of you have together.
If you never make an effort to figure this out one of these three things will happen to you the next time you’re in a situation that requires introductions:
- You fail to introduce her to anyone. She has to raise her own hand and say, “Hi I’m (her name here) .”
- You manage to introduce her, but with something vague like, “Hey this is (her name here) .”
- You haven’t talked about how you refer to each other yet and you blurt out, ”Hey this is my girlfriend, (her name here) .”
None of these situations will please her. 1. She feels like you don’t respect her enough to make a statement about what the two of you are. 2. She is irked that your relationship is so ambiguous. 3. She wonders why she didn’t get a say in this whole “girlfriend” business.
Many of us try to avoid these sort of questions in fear of scaring her off or winding up in something more serious than you originally intended, but you need to ask her how she wants to be introduced in situations like this.
- We can save labels for later but I just want to know what to do if you meet my friends?
- What do you want me to say if someone asks what we are?
- How would you introduce me to your friends?
Small asks like this can avoid a lot of awkwardness down the line. So do it already and decide on what you’ll refer to her as in the future.
