What It Means When Straight Girls 'Marry'

A generation ago, gay teens hid their sexual orientation from everyone around them—now, straight girls “marry” each other on Facebook and write each other love poems, while parents struggle to catch up with the language of today’s love. “Was there a difference between going out, hanging out, and breaking up?” writes Candy Schulman on Salon. Her 15-year-old daughter simply rolls her eyes, making it clear “I would just never understand.”

Schulman details her confusion: “Going out” doesn’t necessarily mean a teen couple is “going” anywhere—it doesn’t even necessarily include “hanging out” at school—but a Facebook break-up is a sure way to tell that a couple was, at least at one time, “going out.” One phrase she has mastered: Don’t use the term “hooking up”—unless you want “everyone to think sex was involved.”
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