The term was changing its meaning and usage slightly over the years. In the mid-sixties, it meant two things. To the teachers and other staff in charge of education and the youth, it was representing a kind of antisocial behavior, imitating all the worst things from the west - fashion, music, bad language (imagine Belmondo in an original film noir - which was popular then). Once Ivka held a classmaster's class on the subject, and the text she had was completely alien to us. In it, the guy was borderline criminal, antisocial to the hilt. In our reality, a frajer is a guy who's just good company, fun to be with, perhaps too early to say anything about the girls (we were early teens then) but promising.
Later, in the seventies and all the way to today, it's just a
- word for a guy
- word for someone who did something remarkable or good or behaved with distinction ("ispao frajer" - "turned out to be a square guy")
- good looking guy (which is almost everybody until someone says he's not much of a frajer)
- a pejorative for someone who screws you or someone else just to try to raise his own standing ("kao ispao frajer, a?" - "[thinks] as if [he] came out as a square guy, eh?")
21-XI-2019 - 17-VI-2024