oh yeah, right, then there's the thing with genders: if you're (read as) one gender, and you say that someone's your "freund" or "freundin" (whatever's the "opposite gender"), then, in my experience, people think you mean a romantic partner. if you're talking about your "freund"/"freundin" who is the same gender as you (presumably), i feel like it's way more normal to describe your "regular" friends that way. example: if society reads me as a (cis straight) woman, then "das ist meine freundin" - people will probably default to thinking i'm referring to a friend"das ist mein freund" - people will definitely default to thinking i'm referring to a romantic partner