What we should call a male whom we're talking about as a third person? (in America). I feel sounded polite while talking about a female and calling her "lady", as :Have you just seen a lady I've been with? She is my friend's mother; or She is our manager". But how to call a male person, if he is definitely not "a guy"? A gentleman? I'm not completely sure I hear this particular word around me a lot...
guy vs who? a gentleman?
Using "gentleman" in that context would sound very stilted and formal. If you don't want to go as informal as "guy", then you could just say "man". I think "man" and "woman" would be the basic, general-purpose, formality-neutral terms for a context like that.
2Lazar:
I don't know about "guy" (it's why I'm asking a question), but I definitely can't agree about "woman". Even in places like Costco or Walmart people use "lady". actually in America people will very unlikely correct your mistakes with telling it to your face, so everybody's free to use whatever he (she) wants, but I KNOW for sure, "lady" sounds MUCH more appropriate than "woman" does. And for various reasons I prefer rather to be deliberately polite than not to.
I don't know about "guy" (it's why I'm asking a question), but I definitely can't agree about "woman". Even in places like Costco or Walmart people use "lady". actually in America people will very unlikely correct your mistakes with telling it to your face, so everybody's free to use whatever he (she) wants, but I KNOW for sure, "lady" sounds MUCH more appropriate than "woman" does. And for various reasons I prefer rather to be deliberately polite than not to.
I'd like to correct you:
«Have you just seen THE lady I've been with?»
HTH.
«Have you just seen THE lady I've been with?»
HTH.