What does boyfriend and girlfriend mean?
Generally, the use of boyfriend or girlfriend by anyone, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, is usually used to mean someone that person has a serious relationship with: they are a couple. Exception: women sometimes use girlfriend to mean just a normal friend.
What do you call a boyfriend and girlfriend relationship?
The term partner nowadays usually denotes a member of a serious, long-term romantic relationship, up to and including marriage.
Why do they call it boyfriend and girlfriend?
Etymology Online dates the term “boyfriend,” meaning “womans paramour,” to 1909. However, the term has an earlier platonic sense. Girlfriend seems to have had a similar trajectory, beginning as a term for a young female friend, only taking on romantic connotations after the conversion of boyfriend.