Yep, sounds weird for me as well. We have separate words for boyfriend and girlfriend, but those have a kinda deeper meaning*, using “girl” and “friend” to describe someone who’s really close to me is extremely weird. Like, the days she could be called a “girl” are in the past and calling her the same term as I call for example my work friends is just weird. So in my language I do use the equivalent of “boyfriend” and “girlfriend”, but almost never in English.
* The word comes from a word for close friend and nowadays basically isn’t used to mean “friend” anymore. I mean, it still does, but no one uses it that way. And even then it signifies some deeper connection between people compared to our more common word for “friend”.
Yep, sounds weird for me as well. We have separate words for boyfriend and girlfriend, but those have a kinda deeper meaning*, using “girl” and “friend” to describe someone who’s really close to me is extremely weird. Like, the days she could be called a “girl” are in the past and calling her the same term as I call for example my work friends is just weird. So in my language I do use the equivalent of “boyfriend” and “girlfriend”, but almost never in English.
* The word comes from a word for close friend and nowadays basically isn’t used to mean “friend” anymore. I mean, it still does, but no one uses it that way. And even then it signifies some deeper connection between people compared to our more common word for “friend”.