To tell him I don’t want to meet his parents until he considers me his girlfriend?

[Tinyterrapins]

Perhaps I’m being very immature.

We’ve been dating since Oct. We work near one another which means we see each other almost daily. We’ve talked about the future quite a lot. I’ve met most of his friends. It feels very much like a relationship. Although it’s been a short span of time, we’ve spent a lot of hours together in that time.

However, I’ve only ever heard him refer to me as “the person i’m seeing” or “the woman I’m dating”.

I was shocked last weekend when he introduced me to someone as his friend.

I’m supposed to go to his mum’s 70th in a couple of weeks. I’ve never met any of his family.

While i’m pleased to be asked, I can’t help but feel a bit like accompanying him to a family event is a girlfriend job, and not for someone he’s just “seeing”.

Granted I’ve had a stressful day at work so I’m a bit grumpy today anyway, but I spent my lunch break unsuccessfully trying to find something to wear for the dinner, and it just dawned on me that it’s feeling like a lot of stress and effort, for someone who doesn’t even consider me his girlfriend.

We’re both in our mid 40s so perhaps people don’t use that word so much, but he refers to his exes as he “ex-girlfriend(s)” all the time!

This. It's 3 months. And two months of exclusivity. Not even remotely approaching a long time.

I just meant relative to the time we’ve known each other.

I am with you OP. I am not doing girlfriend things with somebody whose girlfriend I am not.

I also find it odd to invite the “woman I am seeing” to a family function.

I think broadly you just need to consider that there exists a possibility (and from comments here a fairly strong possibility) that you both have different feelings towards the terminology of girlfriend/boyfriend. There's clearly no wrong or right.

It could be an indicator, of course, that he is non-commital to the relationship but before jumping to that conclusion - there is enough feedback here to give pause for thought and not make a rash decision to break up with him.

I think that's about as good as it gets in AIBU, so hopefully you've found the differing responses really helpful.

Go to the meal because ultimately if you don't he really would have reason to doubt your commitment to the relationship too. Go to the meal and have a chat about it after would be my view.

Actually it's quite useful to see if the person has read all the OP's updates or just the first.

I’m in the same age bracket as the OP and there’s no way I’d use the term girlfriend or boyfriend. I’d say either partner (we are 2 years together) or ‘the person I’m seeing.’ We are together now for life, totally committed to each other, entirely exclusive, and knew that from very early on, but even a few months into the relationship we would have never considered using the term ‘girlfriend’. It just feels weird at our age, having been married before, and with kids from previous relationships. I think the OP can relax. It seems to me to be all about him not liking the word, and nothing more sinister than that.

Well I'm middle-aged and I think boyfriend/girlfriend terms are fine and appropriate if you're exclusive but not living together.

This is my thinking too.

Plenty of people feel "girlfriend" is an odd term for anyone over about 25.

But listen to what he is actually doing.

Wanting to be exclusive early on.
Inviting you to his Mum's big birthday do.
Inviting you to meet all his extended family this early on in the relationship.
Seeing you almost every day.

All of that sounds like he is committed to me, I wouldn't be worrying about the language.