The more typical words would be “husband / wife” or “boyfriend / girlfriend” which have gender built into them. Whereas “partner” is more popular with lefty folks who want to use the same word no matter what the gender of their partner is.

But importantly there will be gay men who say “husband” or “boyfriend” when referring to their partner, and lesbians might say “wife” or “girlfriend”, and some straight people will say “partner”, so partner doesn’t only mean homosexual.

Some straight people say it to provide cover for homosexual people who say it, so that it remains an ambiguous term, but also a lot of people of all sexualities like the term because it shows a commitment to their relationship without involving marital status. Like “boyfriend” can feel a bit new, or a bit highschool. But not everyone gets married anymore. So maybe you’ve been together for 12 years, but you aren’t married, so you can’t say “wife”, but “girlfriend” maybe feels a bit childish for this women you’ve been committed to for over a decade and live with and maybe even have pets or kids together. So even for straight people “partner” can be a mature, committed, term without relying on marriage.

Some people will use “significant other”, sometimes shortened to “SO”, as a different way of saying the same thing. That one feels even more… dry?.. to me. It feels like something you’d see on a government form. But some people use it and love it. And sometimes people will say things like “my better half” or something like that to refer to their partner, and that one is a little more folksy and warm.

So to wrap up, partner has been gaining popularity for a while, and has some advantages, but most of those advantages apply to non-traditional situations. The traditional version would be man meets woman and gets married quickly. So in some places and communities and cultures “partner” will be a very normal word, but in some more traditional areas it might make people suspicious when you use it because they’ll think “why did this guy not say wife… is he secretly gay?” or something.

K

"Imagine appearing for a job interview and, without saying a single word, being told that you are not getting the role because your face didn’t fit. You would assume discrimination, and might even contemplate litigation. But what if bias was not the reason?

Uh… guys…

Discrimination: the act, practice, or an instance of unfairly treating a person or group differently from other people or groups on a class or categorical basis

Prejudice: an adverse opinion or leaning formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge

Bias: to give a settled and often prejudiced outlook to

Judging someone’s ability without knowing them, based solely on their appearance, is, like, kinda the definition of bias, discrimination, and prejudice. I think their stupid angle is “it’s not unfair because what if this time it really worked though!” 😅

I know this is the point, but there’s no way this could possibly end up with anything other than a lazily written, comically clichéd, Sci Fi future where there’s an underclass of like “class gammas” who have gamma face, and then the betas that blah blah. Whereas the alphas are the most perfect ughhhhh. It’s not even a huge leap; it’s fucking inevitable. That’s the outcome of this.

I should watch Gattaca again…

Technically they are the 2fa. The second factor is something you have. I store all my passkeys in my password manager too, so I’m not faulting you, but technically that’s just undoing the second factor, because now my two factors are “two things that are both unlocked by the same one thing I know”. Which is one complicated factor spread across two form fields.