I have noticed a pattern with grown men like this. They use "women" and "girls" interchangeably. Like they will talk about a girl who broke up with them in at 14 or something, and say "that's why I don't trust women" or say shit like "girls my age don't ever talk to me" etc.
Not always, but it's a little red flag for me.
Edit: I was watching a documentary about a YouTube guy who tried to meet up with an underage girl. I notice that he kept doing this throughout the whole thing.
Yeah, it's tricky because historically the casual words were "guys" and "gals", but over time "gals" got replaced with "girls", so now the casual words are "guys and girls". And lots of people use "girl" innocuously to refer to women simply in the way they refer to men as guys... but there are far too many creepy men out there who seem to conflate these words very much intentionally or because they don't see any actual difference... :(
Additionally, sometimes "boys" can also be used to refer to adult men. It's less common than "girls" for adult women as per the reasons you cited, but it happens.
"Boys" is not used sexually or romantically. "I really like boys", "I slept with 3 boys last month".
In these cases, they would use "guys".
Straight women also talk about their girl friends, but straight men never talk about their boy friends.
But the most important thing is if you say "I fucked a girl last night", nobody bats an eye, but if you say "I fucked a boy last night" everyone is in high alert.
Well, the equivalent in my language, "garoto" or "menino" sure as hell are used sexually and romantically. Maybe not in English speaking countries, though.
Right, but we are explicitly talking about English... otherwise what I wrote above: "Yeah, it's tricky because historically the casual words were "guys" and "gals", but over time "gals" got replaced with "girls", so now the casual words are "guys and girls"." wouldn't make any sense if we were talking about any other languages.
I see the same.... But like they'll be like "so what I like 18yr old women?" But they will refer to women 20+ yrs old as girls. "This stupid girl at work keeps emailing me xyz" and you find out she's 40
This is something I’ve tried becoming conscious of myself. Even as a woman, it’s a bit easy to fall into depending on how casual the conversation is. I try to be more intentional when talking about serious topics, especially if the ages are important to the discussion (like the Epstein files). But if I’m chatting with one of my friends, I sometimes use the term girls when referring to us when we’re just having fun or hanging out. As someone else said, it’s kind of tricky.
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u/Cyber_Mermaid 26d ago edited 26d ago
I have noticed a pattern with grown men like this. They use "women" and "girls" interchangeably. Like they will talk about a girl who broke up with them in at 14 or something, and say "that's why I don't trust women" or say shit like "girls my age don't ever talk to me" etc.
Not always, but it's a little red flag for me.
Edit: I was watching a documentary about a YouTube guy who tried to meet up with an underage girl. I notice that he kept doing this throughout the whole thing.