Timeline for Does the phrase "Tom has been seeing Mary for a while" always imply they have a romantic relationship?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
18 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 13, 2023 at 14:40 | vote | accept | Tom | ||
| Sep 13, 2023 at 9:09 | comment | added | Peter - Reinstate Monica | While the romantic meaning is the one to choose without context, it is fun to conceive of different contexts. In general terms, Mary is visible to Tom but not necessarily vice versa: Mary may be an approaching lion, or a sniper's target, or a spaceship about to dock on the ISS. | |
| Sep 12, 2023 at 18:07 | comment | added | WS2 | @JanusBahsJacquet Odd. In my experience "seeing" is something widowed octogenarians do. | |
| Sep 12, 2023 at 15:50 | comment | added | Janus Bahs Jacquet | @WS2 I’d say that most 18–25-year-olds would probably find it rather old-fashioned to say that they’re ‘going out with’ someone. Seeing, I think, originated in the US and entered the UK some time in the not-too-distant past, and I think younger Brits would be even more likely to use an even more recently borrowed Americanism and say they’re dating. My gut feeling is that ‘dating’ is a less old-fashioned equivalent of ‘going out with’, and ‘seeing’ is a less old-fashioned equivalent of ‘going steady with’ (implying a more serious, established relationship), but it’s obviously very fuzzy. | |
| Sep 12, 2023 at 12:35 | comment | added | ilkkachu | @neminem, wouldn't that be more like "looking" or indeed "watching", or perhaps "focusing on"? Or course you also "see" if you look or watch, but then also Tom might have just "seen" Mary walk on the other side of the yard with both minding their business, just like everyone sees dozens of people daily. But I don't think that was the meaning. Then again, I wonder, why couldn't it mean a platonic friendship? If Tom can "see" a therapist without a romantic connection, why couldn't he "see" someone he just likes the company of? (Or is it that we assume a male and a female can't be just friends?) | |
| Sep 12, 2023 at 5:38 | comment | added | WS2 | You may be right there. And I think it probably began as an expression of an illicit relationship. "Does his wife know he's seeing someone from work?" But it definitely gets used with people in older age who have been widowed or made otherwise single - "Geoff seems a lot happier than he was, I think he may be seeing someone". | |
| Sep 12, 2023 at 1:07 | comment | added | MarcInManhattan | @gidds Done, thanks! | |
| Sep 12, 2023 at 1:07 | history | edited | MarcInManhattan | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Inserted second paragraph.
|
| Sep 11, 2023 at 21:30 | comment | added | reirab | @gidds That's definitely correct. If the context is that Mary is a doctor and Tom is her patient, then this sentence would simply imply that he's been her patient for a while, with no romantic implication. However, the answer is still correct as written that, without further context, the sentence does indeed imply a romantic relationship. | |
| Sep 11, 2023 at 18:58 | comment | added | gidds | @MarcInManhattan Feel free to edit some or all of that into your answer. (Making the best answers is our collective goal!) | |
| Sep 11, 2023 at 17:09 | comment | added | neminem | Strictly speaking, it could also be literal, given the right context: "Tom loves creepily watching people with binoculars from his balcony without their knowledge. He's been seeing Mary for a while." What it cannot mean is that they're platonic friends who frequently hang out together. | |
| Sep 11, 2023 at 16:25 | comment | added | MarcInManhattan | @gidds Yes, exactly! I had a different example of how "seeing someone" could have a different meaning (though I decided not to include it), but the psychoanalyst example is perfect. I suspect that the understood genders (based on the names) could provide some of that context, too. | |
| Sep 11, 2023 at 14:09 | comment | added | gidds | As an illustration of why this may not be true in specific contexts, consider that Mary may be a psychoanalyst, and so Tom's ‘seeing her’ may consist of sessions of psychoanalysis, and their relationship would be entirely professional. Or Mary could be providing some other service, such as hairdressing or dentistry or accountancy or music lessons. — However, without knowing any such context, a romantic relationship would be a reasonable assumption. | |
| Sep 11, 2023 at 11:43 | comment | added | Kate Bunting | @MichaelHarvey - Exactly. I would have said it was older than 'seeing'. | |
| Sep 11, 2023 at 9:13 | comment | added | Michael Harvey | @KateBunting - when I started having anything to do with the opposite sex, around 1968, if a regular arrangement ensued it was definitely called 'going out with'. | |
| Sep 11, 2023 at 8:48 | comment | added | Kate Bunting | @WS2 - Perhaps I'm a very old person, but my impression is that seeing someone meaning 'in a romantic relationship with them' is a comparatively recent usage! | |
| Sep 11, 2023 at 5:35 | comment | added | WS2 | If they are both young people - say 18 to 25, the more likely expression for a developing romance would be "Tom is going out with Mary". "Seeing" I believe gets used with older people - at least that's my UK sense. | |
| Sep 11, 2023 at 5:04 | history | answered | MarcInManhattan | CC BY-SA 4.0 |