you're talking past each other over an overloaded term. focus on concepts, not labels, is my advice.

I find it's problematic to insist that there's one true definition of such long-standing and changing terms. socialism preexisted communism, and marx wrote against socialism. later on, socialism was adopted as the term for the intermediate transitional state from capitalism to communism. then it was bombarded by propaganda and became associated in some places with anything that vaguely resembles questioning of neoliberal exploitation practices. it's little use to insist any of these is "more right" than the other when the other party in the conversation is just as convinced because teachers and people around them have traditionally used that word with that meaning. it's challenging to dig deeper into what each party means by such overloaded terms, but it usually leads to deeper, more productive interactions, instead of heat and impasses.