b) just because something is common or widespread, doesn't mean it should be normalized or treated as "the best that it can be". That's a highly conservative (in the non-US-political sense) and neophobic viewpoint - not what I would expect on Hacker News. Reduction of a S/O to a sex-provider might be common among certain social groups, but that's not the society I dream of.
Nothing in the joke said "only". By that logic, all single sentences are reductionist.
You're intentionally using emotionally laden words.
Also, the difference between a BFF and an significant other generally is the sex.
> you are (wrongly) assuming that this one person is the only person who dislikes this type of joke
Making everyone happy isn't possible and it's generally not even worth trying because some people just dislike everything. If they're overly dramatic about the "harm" it usually means there isn't any, that they just like controlling discussion.
> just because something is common or widespread, doesn't mean it should be normalized or treated as "the best that it can be"
Nobody did that. They said that in a sense of "and yet you're not dead yet."
Generally humor like this is only bad if it unreasonably hurts someone and "all SOs" are not a class who can be hurt by humor. Nobody is being maligned.
Read your way, yeah, it's inappropriate for a work context.
We (society) really need to move beyond making these lame jokes. They weren’t funny in the 80’s, 90’s, 00’s, or the 10’s…