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The term girlfriend is usually used in one of two senses, each implying a kind of intimate friendship:
- When describing a girl or woman as "girlfriend" of a heterosexual woman, it is usually used in terms of very close friends. It usually has no sexual or romantic connotation in that sense of its usage.
- When describing a girl or woman as "girlfriend" of a man or of a bisexual or lesbian woman, it is almost always used to refer to a woman that is involved in a romantic or sexual relationship with that person. The equivalent male term is boyfriend. It may describe various stages of courtship outside of marriage.
The term is also sometimes used as a term of endearment between gay male friends, in the first (non-sexual or -romantic) sense of the word, as an ironic reference to the common perception of gay men and boys as "girls".
See also
Girlfriend is also a Hindi film.
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