男友(nán yǒu) - boyfriend in Mandarin

男友 (nán yǒu) means boyfriend. It is the short form of 男朋友, made by dropping the middle character, and the two are interchangeable in meaning.

The short form reads slightly more written and more modern. You see it constantly in news captions, social media posts and gossip columns, where 男友 saves a character. In relaxed speech most people still say 男朋友.

The trap for English speakers is assuming 友 on its own works the same way. It does not. 友 is a bound morpheme in modern Mandarin and almost never stands alone as a word: the free-standing word for friend is 朋友. So 男友 is fine, but 我的友 is not.