It happens every single time I do a round of introductions.
My inner monologue of ‘shit, shit, shit, shit’ starts. My heart rate skyrockets.
I’m about to introduce you to The Mister. And it goes a little something like this.
‘Oh and this is Beau, my…. um.. fee, um, boyfriend’
It’s immediately followed by an apology.
‘Sorry, I just don’t like saying fiance’, I say, biting my lip.
The Mister is used to it, and gives me a little smile when I look at him, crestfallen that it irks me so much and all I can offer is a mimed ‘sorry’.
He’s pretty lukewarm on the word too. 
While I say it with either a twisted face or serious downward inflection, he can only say it in the way Mr Humphries would.
It’s funny, but the cringe kills it for both of us. So we had to think of an alternative.
‘Man friend’ worked for a little while for me, but ‘lady friend’ sounded like he had gone through a divorce and was breaking the news of a new squeeze to the kids.
Saying partner was almost perfect, but it is ambiguous and neither of us wanted to sound as though we owned a law firm together.
One Friday night at the pub, The Mister and I were mucking around, waxing lyrical about the ‘F word’, I was in the middle of re-enacting this scene from Seinfeld, when it happened.
I said, ‘well your name starts with a B, I should just call you my Beyonce’.
Well. It stuck.
the wry life 