While thinking about my past and my intellectual preferences as to how to approach it, my mind took flight on a question that I find many others approach with caution, disdain and confusion - in the realm of human relationships and whether the terms we use to describe them are problematic, thereby contributing to their collapse and almost routine failure. As Korzybski provides in his Science and Sanity, I believe that the term "boyfriend/girlfriend" or "husband/wife" or even "partner" which is used as an abstraction for same-sex relationships are over/underdefined, and as such carry with them the burden of disappointment and unfair expectation.
Over/underdefinition runs rife in politics and media. An example of over/underdefinition in a political context can be found in the word "democracy" - while the intensional definition of "democracy" could be applied to an extensional dictatorship such as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (functionally, the DPRK exists as a multi-party democracy, although no power is ever delegated to anyone else except for the "Dear Leader") it becomes apparent that the word, democracy, has been overdefined to fit a political agenda and not the facts as we confront them.
As the Wiktionary states as an intensional definition, the term "girlfriend" means the "female partner in a romantic relationship" - but when we declare to ourselves or even others (setting our Facebook status to reflect the territory to the dreaded 'In a Relationship' status) are we displaying a definition rather an an extensional fact? If your boyfriend cheats on you, claiming the relationship dissolved in his mind's eye, does the intensional term still fit the extensional territory? (By that definition, if you thought him to still be your boyfriend, but did not extend the same courtesy as you being his girlfriend, does the relationship still exist?) If one partner intensionally defines a relationship as something akin to a "booty call" or some such vulgar term while the other expects total fidelity of word and deed, who is "in the relationship"? In this example, does it appear that either of these two are in a relationship, by extensional definition? Why do so many over/underdefine the term to satisfy a tendency to decieve oneself for the sake of an equally over/underdefined term "love" or "companionship?"
Simply put, some relationships simply dissolve from a mismatch in expectation - the maps for the relationship simply do not fit the territory and neither party shall give the other the benefit of the doubt to explore one another's map to evaluate fully as to what map will be followed and how to apply this to the territory that confronts them day-by-day. It feels like a struggle to be surmounted - however one can find the vividness in life's grand palette by drawing more detailed maps and becoming more extensionally oriented to avoid such conflicts arising from mere "definition."
References:
Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics, Alfred Korzybski, Institute of General Semantics, 1994, 5th edition.
The New Peoplemaking, Virginia Satir, Science and Behavior Books, 1988.