"Next Friday" is always a week+ away. If it's Tuesday and I say "next Friday", I ALWAYS mean the day 10 days away.

If someone says "next Friday" to me and they mean the one in a few days I'll look at them like they're crazy.

I use it to mean, a time up to two years ago. She uses it to mean up to no more than a month.

I think the disagreement is because I have a better memory - two years ago does not feel so distant to me. It is a silly and fun thing to argue about, leading to some agreements on terminology:

A while ago - 2- 10 years

Back in the day - 10+ years ago

And just to troll her, I boldly make the claim, "just now" means any time between now and a week ago.

“Several..?”

In practice my immediate response for "several" would be to use it interchangeably with "few". 3-5.

But all these comments make me think that maybe it should fill my [gap] at "seven-ish". I mean, the "seve" bit does kinda lend itself.

[0] Tangentially, several is from 'Medieval Latin separalis "separable," ' as in '(as in went their several ways)' . So to link it with "seven" would be a weird thing to do but I imagine this kind of thing happens with a living language.

[0] https://www.etymonline.com/word/several

As for "handful"... you and I are worlds apart on that one! :-P Hand has four fingers, five digits. So "handful" is 4-5 for me. But as other comments alluded, if the [thing] is a batch of small something (like sand) then it's simply how much you can grasp.

As I mentioned these words have surprisingly varied definitions between people! One of the wonders of a living language.

Still not as amorphous as the word "now" and its various prefixes when it comes to South Africans and time.

For me it depends on the formality. For example, a married couple is never more than two people.