Summarising your relationship status to a friend is often something that requires patience, a pot of tea and a lot of snacks.
Whether you're friends with benefits, in a long-term committed relationship or even just dating, there is never a simple way to define your love life.
(Unless you're Ross and Rachel)
But things are soon to change.
The ever-efficient and forward-thinking Swedes have created the words that perfectly describe your relationship.
With no English equivalent, you are now saved from the hassle of where you and your significant other stand in the minefield that is modern romance.
Imagine the time that could be saved?
Romantically committed but unmarried and living apart
You've been together a while, you've met the whole family and have even dropped the 'L' bomb.
But this doesn't necessarily mean you're ready to settle down in the suburbs.
If you've moved past the point of seeing each other and want to tell everyone about the new love of your life then you would refer to them as your 'Särbo'.
Living together but unmarried
Let's face it, nobody likes the term 'partner'.
It feels old fashioned and serious, but at the same time the alternative label of boyfriend or girlfriend feels too young.
You just can't win.
But now a middle ground has finally be reached.
If this is you, then you have yourself a 'Sambo', which is a fusion of amman, meaning together, and boende, meaning accommodation together.
We're just friends
There is nothing worse than that awkward moment where people assume that because you're hanging out with someone you're romantically involved in some way.
Come on people, can I not just have a friend who is a boy?
Well now you can save your explaining and simply refer to your buddy as 'Tjejkompis' for a girl or 'Killkompis' for a boy.
Whilst this saves us a lot of explanation, there are still a few relationship statuses we wish could be so easily summarised with a single word.
What about the couple that are 'engaged to be engaged'?
The stage where you have moved from being friends to dating.
Or the friends that are sleeping together because they think that the other one really likes them, but actually there are no emotions there at all. But neither of them want to break it off because they don't wan to hurt each others feelings...
Come to think of it, perhaps some situations are just too complicated to explain in a single word.
After all 'the course of true love never did run smooth'...using only monosyllabic words.
