Can we talk about the "friend zone" and "nice guys" for a moment?

Phasmal

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Jun 10, 2011
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Damien Granz said:
You can consider someone's feelings til the cows come home. If you aren't attracted to them, you can't really have a relationship with them, so while it does come down to attractiveness, thats not shallow, just how it is. If you have all the qualities of a partner but there is no chemistry, you are just a friend.

I had a friend I knew liked me. I was not attracted to him at all, and all he did was put me on a pedestal. When I started going out with my ex-boyfriend, this friend acted horribly. As if the knowledge that he liked me (even if I didn't like him) should prevent me from going out with someone else.

And if someone does claim to love you for your brains and all that, and you just don't feel the same way, going out with someone else (FOR ANY REASON) does not make you shallow. It might suck to see someone you wanted to go out with go out with someone else, but once again that is just life. I'm not referring to genders because this happens both ways, I've known more guys try the sneaky friendship thing but thats just my personal experience.

I can understand not wanting to be friends when you know it will come to nothing more, its a bit of a dick move, but if you have to do it to spare your feelings it's understandable. But it can hurt from the other side. Like `Oh thats how much our friendship meant to you then`.
 

tobyornottoby

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Jimbo1212 said:
Right, emotions should always be placed below logic. If you can not do that, then good luck in life as you will need all the luck you can get.
From my personal experience, those who let emotions dominate their decisions always screw up and never learn, because you can not learn from emotions. Those who use their head always end up making a good decision either first time round or soon after and end up happy. To put it simply:
Logic leads to emotional happiness
Emotions lead to misery and repeated failure.

Yes, geners are important, but why are you implying that decent guys are unfit and ugly? ^_-
The rough guys I know are short, stupid, and unhealthy (either too fat or thin). Some of the smart guys I know are in shape and good looking ergo, genetically superior.

Bf material V marriage material is stupid because surely marriage material >> bf material.
By calling someones bf material, you are implying that they are not as good as Marriage material, yet for some reason still choose bf material.
That makes no sense.
Life has ups and downs. It's quite possible emotional people experience heavier downs, but perhaps they have heavier ups as well to make up for it.

No I didn't say anything about ugliness, but more about personal upkeep. A lot of "Nice Guys" live by the creed that it's the inside that matters and thus do not take a whole lot of care of themselves (while meanwhile still being only interested in the pretty girls). Of course this is just a generalisation.

Different tools for different purposes. For example, I wear different shoes for when I go to work than when I go jogging. I can't really say that one is 'better' than the other as I have them for different goals. Bf material is chosen for a different purpose than marriage material, so you can't really compare them that way.
 

tobyornottoby

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blackrave said:
Yeah and after her heart is broken yet again she goes to the "nice guy" to cry on his shoulder and spew "I wish more guys were like you"-nonsense.
Then after dumping her bad mood on him, she feels better and repeats same mistake again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And.. I don't know I snapped after sixth time.
I felt helpless. She never saw in me something more than tearbin, and my advices/suggestions went unnoticed or ignored. So I stopped it.
Because it hurts. And sucks. But still mostly hurts :(
Women love to vent. They love to talk about their problems, not necessarily looking for advice but just a listening ear. They're looking for a tearbin, that's what they are to each other as well. You don't have to feel helpless as she doesn't want or need help. She just wants to relieve a bunch of emotions.

She likely repeats the mistake because it ultimately brings her more happiness than sadness.
 

someonehairy-ish

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Realitycrash said:
Christ, another topic on the friend-zone? Who actually thinks that being nice to someone entitles them to a relationship?
I guess it doesn't happen to me, because I'm awesome and way to hot to just stay friends with
(See, I can start needless controversy too.)
That isn't a controversial statement. I think we all agree that you are way too hot to just stay friends with.

Meh. I just did the whole friend zoning thing but with the gender roles flipped. There's a girl I get on really well with. We were at a party a while ago and she got all... cuddly. Which was nice enough. But she started saying things after the drinks started disappearing and I had to tell her that I'm not interested.
She's attractive, so it wasn't that.
Anyways I know that it can be awkward to explain to someone who likes you that you like them in a different way, but you can still do it without hurting somebody's feelings too much.
One reason guys often seem to get annoyed when it happens to them is that girls sometimes don't bother with the whole 'not hurting people's feelings' thing. But its also just as often that they're bitter.
 

Damien Granz

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Phasmal said:
Damien Granz said:
You can consider someone's feelings til the cows come home. If you aren't attracted to them, you can't really have a relationship with them, so while it does come down to attractiveness, that's not shallow, just how it is. If you have all the qualities of a partner but there is no chemistry, you are just a friend.

I had a friend I knew liked me. I was not attracted to him at all, and all he did was put me on a pedestal. When I started going out with my ex-boyfriend, this friend acted horribly. As if the knowledge that he liked me (even if I didn't like him) should prevent me from going out with someone else.

And if someone does claim to love you for your brains and all that, and you just don't feel the same way, going out with someone else (FOR ANY REASON) does not make you shallow. It might suck to see someone you wanted to go out with go out with someone else, but once again that is just life. I'm not referring to genders because this happens both ways, I've known more guys try the sneaky friendship thing but that's just my personal experience.

I can understand not wanting to be friends when you know it will come to nothing more, its a bit of a dick move, but if you have to do it to spare your feelings it's understandable. But it can hurt from the other side. Like `Oh that's how much our friendship meant to you then`.
If you want to say that everybody only has relationships because of physical attractiveness, and that everybody are ultimately shallow, then fine by me, just be honest with it, rather than this "All men are chauvinistic pigs, all women want relationships for their partner's mind and only want to be loved, while men only want sex and physical appearance" sort of bull.

If you want to roll the punches as 'everybody is shallow and therefor that's all you should expect in general is shallowness', fine. I can't really debate that.

Because the whole "You can't be friends with this guy because he only wants to have sex with hot women and doesn't respect you for your personality" thing happens just as much. It's not one sided.

I don't mind so much if the conclusion that comes out are 'people everywhere can be shallow assholes', but I don't like the idea of seeing the behavior come from one side, and it's chauvinism, and it come form the other side and it's just men being too insecure to be a friend and nothing more.

That if a guy is rejected and quits being friends with the person who's rejected him, then later makes up shit to make her look like a *****, that's somehow 'unfair', but if a woman is rejected and quits being friends with that man, then later tries to convince herself that he's a shallow prick who only wants giant breasts and a tiny waist line, then that's completely legit? I don't buy that disconnect, I'm sorry.

That's my problem with this sort of defense of the 'friend zone'. Does that make more sense?

I'm not trying to say that all women are assholes, and that men aren't, by any stretch of the imagination. But I don't care for this conclusion that all men are automatically assholes if they do something, but women doing the same exact thing aren't.


Either, to me, seeing the same behavior from both sides, everybody is capable of being shallow assholes and should be called what they are; shallow assholes, or if that behavior doesn't make you shallow if you're a woman, then I reason it shouldn't make you shallow if you're a man, then the word 'shallow' has no meaning, whatsoever, period. Because it's literally impossible to be shallow. At which point, yes. The friend zoned men should stop bitching about being friend zoned. But women that aren't selected to be dated because men who only want a warm piece of meat can shut up just as well because the feeling is apparently mutual on all sides.

That's my thoughts on the situation. Doing otherwise, to me, seems sexist.

Because to me, it's no different, no less sexist, than if we have a population of 90% of men don't understand astrophysics and then 1 man understands it, and it's 'men are good at math because that one man is good at math', then you have 90% of women don't understand it, and 1 woman that does, well.. women are mostly dumb at math, and that one woman is just unusually smart, despite her handicap.

I'd call that sexism too. It would bother me just as much. I don't care if the conclusion you come to is that 1 person proves humans are good at math, or 90% of people prove that everybody is equally crappy at math, but I wouldn't stand for the idea that the same evidence on both sides proves that men are somehow better than women when they both fail. Or, in this case, vice verse.
 

Phasmal

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Damien Granz said:
I didn't say anything about women doing anything or complaining (I did once fall for a friend and never complained when he went out with another friend of ours. I never really made my feelings known so what did I expect but that was yeeeears ago).

But I do take issue with you thinking that dating coming down to attractiveness means everyone is shallow. It doesn't. If you find someone physically repellant but can still manage to make a sexual and romantic relationship with them then more power to you. But I don't think I could.

If your point is that everyone in the friendzone (male or female) should stop banging on about it, then I wholeheartedly agree.

(And also, it may happen just as much on the woman side but you dont get a load of them bitching on this very forum about how all men suck and thats kind of how this thing got started).
 

Damien Granz

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Phasmal said:
Damien Granz said:
I didn't say anything about women doing anything or complaining (I did once fall for a friend and never complained when he went out with another friend of ours. I never really made my feelings known so what did I expect but that was yeeeears ago).

But I do take issue with you thinking that dating coming down to attractiveness means everyone is shallow. It doesn't. If you find someone physically repellant but can still manage to make a sexual and romantic relationship with them then more power to you. But I don't think I could.

If your point is that everyone in the friendzone (male or female) should stop banging on about it, then I wholeheartedly agree.

(And also, it may happen just as much on the woman side but you dont get a load of them bitching on this very forum about how all men suck and thats kind of how this thing got started).
No, but I've heard the whole "Men are pigs that want sex, women only want romance and personality" sort of thing a lot more.
 

Phasmal

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Damien Granz said:
No, but I've heard the whole "Men are pigs that want sex, women only want romance and personality" sort of thing a lot more.
I've heard that too. Usually its from dudes who think that women spend their time staring wistfully off into the distance thinking about the best father for their future babies. Not to say some women dont buy into that stereotype.

Generalisations suck and we should stop using them. But everybody does, its just human nature.
 

Jimbo1212

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tobyornottoby said:
Jimbo1212 said:
Right, emotions should always be placed below logic. If you can not do that, then good luck in life as you will need all the luck you can get.
From my personal experience, those who let emotions dominate their decisions always screw up and never learn, because you can not learn from emotions. Those who use their head always end up making a good decision either first time round or soon after and end up happy. To put it simply:
Logic leads to emotional happiness
Emotions lead to misery and repeated failure.

Yes, geners are important, but why are you implying that decent guys are unfit and ugly? ^_-
The rough guys I know are short, stupid, and unhealthy (either too fat or thin). Some of the smart guys I know are in shape and good looking ergo, genetically superior.

Bf material V marriage material is stupid because surely marriage material >> bf material.
By calling someones bf material, you are implying that they are not as good as Marriage material, yet for some reason still choose bf material.
That makes no sense.
Life has ups and downs. It's quite possible emotional people experience heavier downs, but perhaps they have heavier ups as well to make up for it.
True, but all that means is that these people make bad decisions due to the volatile emotional state. That is a reason, but not a justification.


No I didn't say anything about ugliness, but more about personal upkeep. A lot of "Nice Guys" live by the creed that it's the inside that matters and thus do not take a whole lot of care of themselves (while meanwhile still being only interested in the pretty girls). Of course this is just a generalisation.
Here is the issue;
Many guys I know who call themselves "nice guys" are utter tramps and as you say, live on the moto of letting themselves go as they are a "nice guy".
But they are not "nice guys". They are immature and some what weak, and these are the type of people I am specifically not talking about.

When I say someone is a nice guy, I mean just that; a guy who is friendly, intelligent, average to good looking, fashionable, in shape etc - a nice guy.

How fat women have stolen the word "curvy" to now describe being fat, pussies have stolen the phrase "nice guy".

Different tools for different purposes. For example, I wear different shoes for when I go to work than when I go jogging. I can't really say that one is 'better' than the other as I have them for different goals. Bf material is chosen for a different purpose than marriage material, so you can't really compare them that way.
Ok, what is the difference in purpose? This is what I don't understand.
What I look for in a gf is someone who is attractive, ambitious, nice etc. This never changes. I don't change what I want or have different types.
So how does bf material differ from marriage material?
 

Adultism

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I would type a logical reply to this thread but I can't think at all as of this moment. Lets just say some of your points CAN be counter pointed. Like how we go to our friends and *****. When I do this I ***** about how the girl doesn't like me. But I don't resent her I realize she is not attracted to me or maybe just doesn't like me. When you hear men ***** its probably not "OH HOW DARE SHE REJECT ME" Its "Damn I got rejected by that chick I really liked". I don't really think its our fault for being upset when we put our hopes out and they get crushed. You do know how bad it is to be rejected right? It feels pretty shitty when you get turned down by someone you like. I can't rant on about this anymore because my head is all messed up right now.

But don't always assume that all guys are like that. Its just like how we sometimes judge certain women who look like they put out much. But some guys don't do that often.

What I often see is nice guys getting rejected by the...I don't have a word for it. But popular would fit it. Look good, blah blah blah. I'm rambling on but yeah. Thats my point.
 

manic_depressive13

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Audacity said:
manic_depressive13 said:
"God! Can we stop talking about this?" Why yes. Yes we can. In fact, now would be a good time..
I love when people reply to topics with this. When I get bored of a Thread or think said topic should die, I ignore it.
You say that because you have a hundred posts. When you've seen the exact same topic crop up every week for two years you're going to get mildly annoyed. Particularly when half the threads on the first page of the off-topic section are friend zone or female related, and this forum is misogynistic as hell. I'm tired of it. I might just leave, but naturally I am going to complain about it first.
 

wintercoat

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Y'know, when the friend-zone meme started, it was kinda funny, because you could tell that it was just a bunch of douches who wanted to bang their hot female friend and were turned down, but then it started getting bad. It became a 'thing', and suddenly people are acting like rejection should be vilified, that a guy's female friends were obligated to give them a shot, even if she wasn't attracted to him, because he deserved it. Like the girl's opinion doesn't matter.

There's no such thing as the friend-zone. It's not a place you can be put, because, more often than not, it's the default position in a friendship. Being someone's friend for the sole purpose of trying to get them in a relationship is downright creepy. Be their friend because you want to be their friend, not because you want them to be your girlfriend. And if you do want to date her, guess what? Just because you want it, doesn't mean she's obligated to go out with you.

People need to quit being assholes about rejection. Yeah, it hurts. But if she means that much to you, you'll stop whining about the friend-zone and accept that she doesn't think of you in that way. And if it's the kind of thing you can't get over, stop clinging to her in the hopes that she'll change her mind. I feel for you, I really do, but all your doing is making both of your lives shit and souring good memories of your friendship.
 

xGraeme63x

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Xangba said:
Starik20X6 said:
I've been friend zoned before, due to the way my mind worked at the time. Thus, I've worked out more or less how to minimise friend zoning. Girls, feel free to correct any wild misconceptions I've grown:

As far as I can tell, it's not about "girls like douchebags", it's "girls like confidence". Problem is, the douchiest people tend to be the most confident ones, thus being perceived as more attractive. You can be a nice person and still be confident. It's about not being a wimp, about not taking crap from anybody without spewing crap yourself. Also, you need to have a life and be your own person before she comes along. Despite what rom coms might tell you, you shouldn't need anybody to 'complete' you.
You, sir, get a cookie. Again, people get "friend-zoned" for a few reasons
1.she does not find you physically attractive
2.You have no confidence (which is killer in ANYTHING life throws at you)
3.You don't act romantic at all. Kind of hard for him/her to consider you in such a way if you don't present yourself that way at some point.
You're right on the mark there. The only problem I can find with 3 is that it can be had to romance someone if they view you as a friend. Simple flirting between men and women who are friends is normal...atleast it is with my group of friends. It can be hard sometimes for people to see the difference between flirting and romancing.

Off topic: Thank you for being kind on the internet! *Thumbs up*
haha
 

blackrave

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tobyornottoby said:
Women love to vent. They love to talk about their problems, not necessarily looking for advice but just a listening ear. They're looking for a tearbin, that's what they are to each other as well. You don't have to feel helpless as she doesn't want or need help. She just wants to relieve a bunch of emotions.

She likely repeats the mistake because it ultimately brings her more happiness than sadness.
Eventually I realized that she simply seeks someone to dump her emotions on
That's why status of "The Nice Guy" isn't worth it

Also this discussion reminds me of one part of Bedazzled



Yeah, totally not worth it :D
 

Smooth Operator

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Allthingsspectacular said:
This is small potatoes compared to the "Girls like jerks" myth.
Actually it is similarly odd conclusion on an unspoken truth, girls like exciting guys.
That is why the safe friendly guys get ignored, and exciting guys get options beyond that one single solitary girl they met years ago, so when they explore their options it quickly comes back as "he is such a jerk, why can't I just meet a nice guy"...
And the cycle of hilarity is complete :D