Assorted Backstory III (What to call The Man)

So, I have a partner. Outside of academic circles, I call him instead my boyfriend, unless I want to sound pretentious and/or possibly lesbian.

We aren’t married and don’t have any especial plans to get that way. We have of course had drunken conversations in which we acknowledge that the reasons we might have for doing so include 1) health insurance and 2) the acquiring of a Kitchen-Aid Mixer. (I also think there’s 3) the acquiring of matching towels and sheets, but linen appears to be less a priority for Partner.)

The excellent part about these drunken conversations is that they really do express my feelings on the subject. Joking tone and all. (I don't mean my feelings about Partner -- instead, I mean my feelings about marriage and its non-role in how I define partnership.)

So anyway, titling once again becomes problematic.

I love it in blogs, like at Maud Newton, when the husband becomes this clever ancillary: Mr. Maud, she calls him. But I can’t really call Partner Mr. Blurt, since he isn’t really my mister.

Anyway we ran across this term in some magazine, probably Readymade, at some point: con vivant. It means something like person-with-whom-you-live-romantically. So that’s it. Con Vivant. CV.

Which has the additional rhetorical benefit of invoking, as “essential” to his identity right now, that formulaic presentation of those attributes that make him suitable for hiring.

Of course, since he bikes a lot, he’d probably dig it if I called him Buns.

But that seems kinda undignified.

CV it is. For now.