Is there a more informal or slang alternative to "couple" for two youths in a relationship?

ship

A slang term that came about within the past five to 10 years and has been used fairly recently, though I haven't heard it used a lot of late, not that I'm really wired into that anymore now that my youngest has gone off to college and I no longer have a house full of teenagers, is "ship," which is short for "relationship," for example, one might say:

"They walked in the restaurant and saw a few other ships around their age."

"Ship" is simply an abbreviation of "relationship," in the sense of romantic relationship or couple, though, as it pertains to youth, I wouldn't go so far as to say it necessarily includes only couples, slang and labels used by youth tending towards more open-ended definitions, so, for example, one would not expect a throuple to be excluded from being called a ship, but I digress.

It is from the slang noun "ship" that the slang verb "ship" then evolved, so when someone tries to get two people to romantically couple, wishes they would, fantasizes they would, or really wishes them to continue after they already have, one may say something like, "I ship Ben and Jennifer."

Coinciding with the advent of the slang term "ship" was the start of the practice of forming a portmanteau out of the names of the members of a ship (e.g., calling the couple or ship in the above paragraph's example "Bennifer" by combining their names "Ben" and "Jennifer"), so we began to hear things like, "I ship Bennifer" (i.e., "I ship Ben and Jennifer."). That coincidence resulted in an alternate definition of "ship," a verb meaning to create a single, collective name for a couple by combining their individual names, but that definition is one used only by older people as it came from younger people saying things like, "I ship Bennifer," and older people misinterpreting them as saying that they're dubbing them "Bennifer" rather than assuming that name to be understood and actually saying that they wish them to be in relationship. So, while so naming a couple is now a slang definition of "ship," it's slang that only older people use, one that when younger people hear, they roll their eyes at, a mockery of older people appropriating and then misusing their slang.

Anyway, slang comes and goes in the zeitgeist at the speed of sound, so my caveat to you and others reading answers to this question is that any answer to this question, aside from being prone to being unfounded and/or opinion-based as the scant sources providing recent slang (i.e., what kids these days are saying) and definitions are notoriously unreliable (e.g., Urban Dictionary), is that answers will tend to be fleeting, nonpermanent, quite possibly no longer true within a short timespan, so while this answer may be true in 2021, it may not be true five or 10 years from now, which is important as there are many answers on this site that are that old and those answers come up in Google searches and searches on this site and those answers are often used by users in reference to other questions, like to close one for being a duplicate.

There are lots of slang terms for a romantic couple, or for the state of being in such a couple, or for the actions that make up being in one.

“They’re an item,” yes, absolutely, that’s something people say of the two people in a couple. Each of them could be a “lovebird,” though that refers to the people and not the relationship. “I ship them,” is also a thing, though usually reserved for fictional characters—and also usually applied to more hypothetical couples, two people you believe should be a couple but aren’t actually (yet?). That can be varied to say something like “they’re my favorite ship,” to refer to the (possibly imagined) relationship. There are other words you could use.

But for your example sentence? Couple itself is, in my experience, the most natural and appropriate word choice for that sentence. I honestly can’t imagine ever referring to the other couples as anything other than “couples” in that context. I am a native English speaker from the northeast US in my 30s; I have also spent time on the West Coast of the US. I note comments by PLL and Konrad Rudolph with the same sentiments and experience with Britain.

Beyond that, I have certainly never heard “item” used in the plural to refer to multiple couples; “a few other items around their age,” to me, screams “older author misusing slang from a younger generation.” It just sounds wrong, like one just looked up slang for “couple” and inserted it into the sentence. “Ship” is even worse in that sentence, since people actually out on a date hardly meet the definition of a “ship” in the first place.

Ultimately, I can’t prove or even really provide solid evidence for my position that “couple” is pretty much the only word that fits in that sentence; I have only my experience, and comments suggesting similar experiences, to offer.

pairs

To me, "pairs" is more casual for groups of two, while "couples" implies a stronger relationship between the two individuals. From the dating angle, beginning a relationship is sometimes described as "pairing off".

To expand OP's example a little

They walked into the restaurant and saw a few other pairs around their age as well as larger groups of friends

Printed slang is always a mixed bag, but if you're trying to lean more into the ephemeral/unsure nature of young love you could use an exaggerating hyphenate:

They walked into the restaurant and saw a few other don't-call-them-couples around their age.

It's a stretch of the single word requirement but fits the lingual feel of one word and is implication dense.

English Club defines young couple as

two young people in a romantic relationship

For example

• The park was full of young couples sitting together or walking hand in hand.

I would never normally consider looking at the English StackExchange, but saw this post as a "Hot Network Question" on StackOverflow and thought I'd chip in. As a student in my final year of high school I feel somewhat qualified to have a relevant opinion on this.

I believe the reason you want to have a less formal word for couple is because of the informal nature of young relationships. They are often short lived as those involved are inexperienced. Because of this, I understand your want for a more appropriate word. Despite this, I do not believe such a word exists in our language. I would put this down to the lack of want for a word by the young people in the relationships. The people know that when they are young they are not likely to start a life long relationship, and that it is more probable that it will be short term. Because of this, putting a term that suggests a long-term relationship would not sit right. On the other hand, if a word that did suggest a short-term relationship were to exist I believe it would quickly attain negative connotations from the youth having such relationships. This would be because it would verbalize and concrete that feeling that their relationship was destined to be short lived or that it was not correct.

Teenagers choose to not use any specific or more accurate words for their relationships because they don't want to place any labels. The question "do they have a thing?" is common because the term 'thing' is ambiguous enough to cover many different situations.

'Couple' is probably the best you are going to get. It puts it how it is, without any additional connotations stirring up its meaning.

-- To comment on previous answers

• Item - outdated, sounds completely wrong in this situation
• Lovebirds - similar situation as above
• Ship - Totally wrong situation
• Pair - slightly better as it is more ambiguous, but still not quite right

When I was in high school, I really disliked when my personal preferences were disrespected. Kids in late middle school or high school might not be fully-fledged adults yet, and let's face it: no one's really an "adult" until they've had enough real-world experience to figure out how it all works, but giving them a certain level of respect and autonomy helps them to learn and grow into respectful adults. If you expect a teen to "act like an adult" then make sure you treat them like one! Having grown up in the "respect your elders" world, I have now trashed that for the "If you respect me, I'll continue to respect you, but if you show me disrespect then I reserve the right to revoke your respect privileges until you treat me with the basic level of respect I deserve."

That said, if you're talking to a specific person or group of people, use the generic "couple" and see how they respond. If they correct you, just swap to what they use. You can also ask them what their preferences are.

From your example, tho:

They walked into the restaurant and saw a few other couples around their age.

This example sounds to me like there's an assumption being made about the connection other strangers have. Unless you know they're actually a couple, this would just be "... a few other groups of people around their age" or "... a few other pairs ..." as others have mentioned.

With all due respect to you as your thoughts and opinions are 100% valid: IMO just because someone is "young" or the assumption/stereotype is "ah, kids just don't want something serious at that age" or "kids don't use serious language to describe relationships" that's probably more a result of where they're growing up and who they're around than anything. Unless explicitly corrected, most people in my HS would not argue if they said "Yeah, we're going out" and then 5 minutes later someone described them as "a couple". "Boyfriend/girlfriend" is also not age-restricted, as my partner (F29) and I (M27) often use it to describe each other (for example: If one of us ordered food but the other person is heading downstairs to pick it up, we'll say "My bf/gf will be down in a second to get it, thanks!" as she identifies F and presents F and I identify as M and present M, so it's easy for someone making quick, "book-by-the-cover" judgements to assume "ah, ok, that's probably him/her.").

TL;DR: Use couple if you know they're together unless they correct you. Use "groups", "pair(s)", or "other people" if you don't know if they're together or not.

Sources:

1. I was in HS and dating seriously within the last decade
2. lots of work both in and out of therapy to realize things that bothered me in HS (some of which continued to my current age)

Cheers!