Female Friendzone?

[Legion]

which friendzone definition? because on the escapist there are like a dozen different definitions (same with other things like Patriarchy and white knighting).

Ive seen friendzone definition that makes the individual look like a cross between a stalker and a serial killer on these forums often.

The one ive always used was more of a "sucks to be you" definition.

Indeed. The Escapist seems to have it's own definition for most terms, and they all seem to be sweeping, generalising statements that are as insulting as possible.

Before I started hearing all of these topics about it, as far as I was aware it was:

Two people are friends.
One of those two people develops romantic feelings for the other.
That person confesses their feelings to the other.
That person is rejected, because the other "just wants to be friends".
That person is sad, as they have been told they are only friends.
That person is "friend zoned".

Nothing sinister, nothing creepy, no blaming things on selfish people, no trying to pretend to be friends with somebody to get into their underwear.

It's just a term used to describe when a friend only sees you as a friend when you wanted more than that.

Like pretty much every other term, it seems to have been taken, twisted and used to paint the people in a bad light as a way of making other people feel superior. I don't know why they don't just make up new terms instead to be honest.

 

[Phasmal]

I will disagree because I've had friends who pretty much are still friends and would want to remain that way. The thing is for some reason when it comes to online it always takes everything to the extreme and makes what is essentially a simple relationship issue into some personal problem that makes someone to look worse.

The friend zone certainly does exist but for the most part what happens afterwards is really up to the individual. It only descends into something negative if you let it become something negative.

I don't think I will ever believe in the friendzone as a thing.
All it is is being rejected.
There's no need for a special term, especially a term which makes a passive thing (the other person not being into you) sound like something they are actively doing.

 

[Eleuthera]

Before I started hearing all of these topics about it, as far as I was aware it was:

Two people are friends.
One of those two people develops romantic feelings for the other.
That person confesses their feelings to the other.
That person is rejected, because the other "just wants to be friends".
That person is sad, as they have been told they are only friends.
That person is "friend zoned".

Nothing sinister, nothing creepy, no blaming things on selfish people, no trying to pretend to be friends with somebody to get into underwear.

It's just a term used to describe when a friend only sees you as a friend when you wanted more than that.

Like pretty much every other term, it seems to have been taken, twisted and used to paint the people in a bad light as a way of making other people feel superior. I don't know why they don't just make up new terms instead to be honest.

That's how I always used the term as well. I never understood why there had to be something more behind it.

And, by this definition at least, I suspect it to be about as common for women as it is for men.

 

[JellySlimerMan]

Goddamnit I hate this "friend zone" bullshit about it being about getting into someone's pants. FUCKING STOP ASSUMING THAT.

Yes, that is the case sometimes, but to just unequivocally make that statement is a gross misrepresentation of the entire issue. A friend zone can be anything and it is indeed a legit problem for some people.


As for the topic, yes. Girls get friend zoned all the time. Half the albums Taylor Swift puts out addresses that. It's just not as big of an issue for them normally because they don't have to go through the "first move" stuff. And there is always another guy waiting in reserve who would happily take her. So more often than not, they can settle instead of being outright rejected.

And I say this as a social psychology major.

Don't you think that's a bit of a generalization?

I will say, though, that I agree in that I don't understand the outright hostility taken toward people in the 'friendzone'. I've been in the friendzone. Alot. It sucks. And had nothing to do with sex.

Is it really so inconceivable that you'd like someone as a person so much, that you'd like to know them better as a potential mate? Is the frustration and angst that stems from the knowledge or the fear that making a move might push them away forever really so unrelatable? Is the notion that someone could be so socially awkward and lacking in confidence (or looks) that the idea of seeking out other prospects is too daunting really so foreign?

I can easily see (and have seen) both males and females in the 'friendzone'. Be it a problem with your looks, social graces, or confidence; it's real fucking easy to land yourself there and stick.

Perhaps this will help you understand why everyone thinks that "a guy bring your friend = backstabber son of a *****"

 

[generals3]

Indeed. The Escapist seems to have it's own definition for most terms, and they all seem to be sweeping, generalising statements that are as insulting as possible.

Before I started hearing all of these topics about it, as far as I was aware it was:

Two people are friends.
One of those two people develops romantic feelings for the other.
That person confesses their feelings to the other.
That person is rejected, because the other "just wants to be friends".
That person is sad, as they have been told they are only friends.
That person is "friend zoned".

Nothing sinister, nothing creepy, no blaming things on selfish people, no trying to pretend to be friends with somebody to get into their underwear.

It's just a term used to describe when a friend only sees you as a friend when you wanted more than that.

Like pretty much every other term, it seems to have been taken, twisted and used to paint the people in a bad light as a way of making other people feel superior. I don't know why they don't just make up new terms instead to be honest.

Well that's the scenario which seemed to be the most prominent in my mind as well. Although I also thought that the whole friendzone thingy included people who decided to first show themselves as good friends before trying anything but ended up stuck as friends. But this isn't some kind of obscure creepy thing, it's just a way to first show your "inner beauty" before being judged as a potential partner (which is also probably why mainly insecure people do it).

 

[Yuno Gasai]

I can easily see (and have seen) both males and females in the 'friendzone'. Be it a problem with your looks, social graces, or confidence; it's real fucking easy to land yourself there and stick.

I wouldn't say that's a "friendzone", I'd say that's just an outright lack of confidence.

I don't understand why people get so upset when they're rejected, though. Surely the other person is doing you a favour? They're saying "I'm sorry, I don't like you enough to date you" - and isn't that honesty better than being in a relationship based on lies, or where one party is much more invested in the relationship than the other?

I'm with the side that believes the "friendzone" is a myth people created so they don't have to accept that the girl/boy of their dreams just isn't into them.

 

[EeveeElectro]

From my experience, men are so much more cruel when it comes to this. There's been times when I've fancied friends, not close friends but people I knew. I've told them and they've either cut all ties with me, look at me like I was shit on their shoes or very nicely told me some varient of 'but you're too ugly to be my girlfriend'

It hurt but I never complained because I realise it doesn't always work out the way I want.
Reminds me of that video 'can guys and girls be friends?' most guys said no.
It's just the way our brains work I guess. If a guy didn't like me romantically I'd still be happy to have a good friend.

Keep looking. Just because that one (or 20th!) girl isn't interested doesn't mean there isn't someone out there for you. If love was easy, everyone would be so happy all the time.

 

[Vladimir Stamenov]

Indeed. The Escapist seems to have it's own definition for most terms, and they all seem to be sweeping, generalising statements that are as insulting as possible.

Before I started hearing all of these topics about it, as far as I was aware it was:

Two people are friends.
One of those two people develops romantic feelings for the other.
That person confesses their feelings to the other.
That person is rejected, because the other "just wants to be friends".
That person is sad, as they have been told they are only friends.
That person is "friend zoned".

Nothing sinister, nothing creepy, no blaming things on selfish people, no trying to pretend to be friends with somebody to get into their underwear.

It's just a term used to describe when a friend only sees you as a friend when you wanted more than that.

Like pretty much every other term, it seems to have been taken, twisted and used to paint the people in a bad light as a way of making other people feel superior. I don't know why they don't just make up new terms instead to be honest.

Well that's the scenario which seemed to be the most prominent in my mind as well. Although I also thought that the whole friendzone thingy included people who decided to first show themselves as good friends before trying anything but ended up stuck as friends. But this isn't some kind of obscure creepy thing, it's just a way to first show your "inner beauty" before being judged as a potential partner (which is also probably why mainly insecure people do it).

FINALLY! F*CKING THIS! That's the friendzone. Though the type of friendzone most everyone means (guys that is) is the friendzone when you like a girl and you want to know her better, but you don't tell her anything because you don't want to ruin what you have at the moment and so you are stuck in the friendzone. Anyone who hasn't been IN the friendzone can go and suck it when the say "Man up". Telling her is the obvious course of action, but would we be in the friendzone if we had the self-esteem to "man up"? I'm not in any zone at the moment, but I do have 4 very good female friends and have been friendzoned, so I don't take kindly to people saying it's made up and I don't know what else.

 

[jthm]

I put a girl or two in the friendzone, even having been friendzoned myself. It happens when you want to keep her as a friend, but aren't attracted to her in any way shape or form. It generally feels shitty, but it's the right thing to do and it gives you a bit of perspective when it's your turn to be on the other end of it.

 

[Calibanbutcher]

Goddamnit I hate this "friend zone" bullshit about it being about getting into someone's pants. FUCKING STOP ASSUMING THAT.

Yes, that is the case sometimes, but to just unequivocally make that statement is a gross misrepresentation of the entire issue. A friend zone can be anything and it is indeed a legit problem for some people.


As for the topic, yes. Girls get friend zoned all the time. Half the albums Taylor Swift puts out addresses that. It's just not as big of an issue for them normally because they don't have to go through the "first move" stuff. And there is always another guy waiting in reserve who would happily take her. So more often than not, they can settle instead of being outright rejected.

And I say this as a social psychology major.

Don't you think that's a bit of a generalization?

I will say, though, that I agree in that I don't understand the outright hostility taken toward people in the 'friendzone'. I've been in the friendzone. Alot. It sucks. And had nothing to do with sex.

Is it really so inconceivable that you'd like someone as a person so much, that you'd like to know them better as a potential mate? Is the frustration and angst that stems from the knowledge or the fear that making a move might push them away forever really so unrelatable? Is the notion that someone could be so socially awkward and lacking in confidence (or looks) that the idea of seeking out other prospects is too daunting really so foreign?

I can easily see (and have seen) both males and females in the 'friendzone'. Be it a problem with your looks, social graces, or confidence; it's real fucking easy to land yourself there and stick.

Perhaps this will help you understand why everyone thinks that "a guy bring your friend = backstabber son of a *****"

Aww, you ninja'd me.
Well then I shall just take my video elsewhere...

OT:
I think she is making a good point about "nice guys" and the "friend zone" etc., so her video is definitely worth a look.

 

[Playful Pony]

I don't get this idea of "friendzone". What is so horrible with a man being friends with a woman? Most of my friends are male, it would be very creepy to think that they are only my friends because they all want to sleep with me ><. Not that it is likely to happen, considering I am gay and all. Or is this "friendzone" just that you are friends with someone that you are sexually atracted to? Cause I have had that, but I considered our friendship more important than me getting to "fondle her funbags", as the great Stephen Fry would say

I have a friend that often complains how all the girls he likes just "friendzone" him, but generally that's just something he assumes. He feels like the girl isn't interested in him "like that", so he doesn't even try to make anything out of it. If you treat the relationship like a friendship anyway, why wouldn't she think of you like a friend?!

 

[generals3]

I don't get this idea of "friendzone". What is so horrible with a man being friends with a woman? Most of my friends are male, it would be very creepy to think that they are only my friends because they all want to sleep with me ><. Not that it is likely to happen, considering I am gay and all. Or is this "friendzone" just that you are friends with someone that you are sexually atracted to? Cause I have had that, but I considered our friendship more important than me getting to "fondle her funbags", as the great Stephen Fry would say

It depends on the person but since i've been through it once the horrible thing is that you're basically constantly reminded why you are attracted to that person. Cutting the ties helps a LOT to get over that person. Once i tried my move and i was rejected that's what i did. Not because i see women as walking vaginas but because i knew that if I remained her friend I would be constantly reminded why i had those feelings. It's a matter of not wanting to torture yourself mentally, because that's what the friendzone is, a torture. And often the only way out is to try your move and bail out if it fails.

 

[Lilani]

And the problem here is you're telling me this. I figured it out years ago, and you'll notice I'm not whining about being in the friend zone. We're talking about socially awkward high school and early college aged boys here, they're not especially good at the whole human interaction thing even before you throw unclear statements into the mix. This is not the fault of the guys, and it's not the fault of the girls. It's a problem with inexperience and differences in the way members of each gender are encouraged to communicate while growing up. Which is why I get really annoyed when I see threads like these fill up with people putting the blame entirely on one gender or the other.

Edit: Point is, it's a bad idea to expect socially awkward males to read subtle cues. For that matter, it's a bad idea to expect /any/ male to be able to understand stuff like that coming from a woman he's attracted to. It's just worse for the ones who are already bad at social interaction.

You're right, it isn't either one's fault. Which is why I so harshly react against the idea of the friendzone--the way it's typically used here on the Internet is to blame the girl for not "figuring out" the guy likes her so the guy can leave himself in that state of being hopeful while he waits for her to "figure it out" for indefinite period of time. And the reason it seems I'm placing more blame on the male is because I feel you can't say your efforts have failed if you haven't tried. And if you haven't put yourself out there to get the answers you seek, you haven't tried. You're the one seeking answers, not her. If there's anyone who needs to make sure the questions get answered clearly, it's the one who is asking the questions in the first place.

I think it is unfair that more of this pressure to ask people out is exerted on guys than girls, but that's the shape of society right now, and sometimes you have to step out of your comfort zone to confront certain things. There aren't any rules that say all social interactions should be comfortable, or all social exchanges should be fair. If you go into a conversation like that expecting those rules to be followed, then you're probably going to leave disappointed.

 

[n00beffect]

Hah, see, the biggest (and probably funniest) love tragedy of my life is that I always fall for girls that give me the friendzone syndrome, but at the same time I've done it myself, many times in the past. Most of my friends have always been girls, and though at first I don't realize it, years afterwards they admit that they 'used to like me' in the past, and that just makes me feel so s*it.

It's like Karma, you know?

But I must say, it never happens 'consciously', or rather, the way it happens with guys. There are no great 'admissions' of attraction from my female buds, after which I reject them with the 'I like you as a friend' line of doom - no, it doesn't happen that way; however, I have noticed the pattern of how it usually works, and it's thus:

If a girl's interested in you, she doesn't tell you straightaway, but it's still pretty obvious (the amount of time she devotes to you, the kind of attention she pays to you, etc.) and if you don't make any advances, depending on the kind of person she is, she might try and 'move on', get someone new, and at the same time keep her eyes on you, trying to see if you're jealous or not; or she genuinely moves on, and you are the one who becomes friendzoned (not completely, of course, if you don't start acting like a jackass, she'll still bear those sympathies towards you). Of course, this is all relative and subject to many varying circumstances, but I've never heard of an instant where it happens the way it happens with men, with the confession and rejection element.

It all comes down to the qualities of the girl, if she's confident, has high self-esteem, she's therefore very proud of herself, very dignified, and she'd usually never put herself out there, because girls are just smarter like that, I suppose. And I say 'usually' since I'm sure that's not always true.

Whatever the case may be with female friendzoning, I bet it's still every bit as painful as the male one.

 

[Vegosiux]

I think it is unfair that more of this pressure to ask people out is exerted on guys than girls, but that's the shape of society right now, and sometimes you have to step out of your comfort zone to confront certain things. There aren't any rules that say all social interactions should be comfortable, or all social exchanges should be fair. If you go into a conversation like that expecting those rules to be followed, then you're probably going to leave disappointed.

I'd be a bit careful with using the "but it's how the society is shaped right now, so you have to conform" argument, seeing as how the same argument applied to a different aspect of "how society is shaped right now" would likely start a fire...

 

[Combustion Kevin]

hoooh boy! a friendzone thread! ain't that a blast from the past!

here's some simple ground rules:
-keep communication clear and simple
-good friends can still go either way on the romantic scale, people are not static beings
-romantic interest does not equal sex, asexuals also have romantic tendencies and may seek compagnionship in the form of a relationship, reducing the relationship to just sex has some very unfortunate implications.

and last but not least,

-Screw gender-roles, Fortune favors the audacious.

 

[DoPo]

The "friendzone" does not exist

Of course it does. The idea that women would use there sexual cashe` to get what they want, without having to actually commit to what they see as an inferior male. An honestly thats what women want, because as soon as men stop aying attention, those same women will inevitably be the ones making the "where have all the good men gone" statements, when no man shows her any sort of secual interest.

This isn't news, this is a well established, long standing tradition with attractive women.

I don't think that definition of "friendzone" conforms to any other definition I've heard. It isn't described as a manipulation technique but rather relationship blocking one. One wants to hook up, the other person goes "sorry - friendship only". Manipulation doesn't really fit there.

 

[AlexWinter]

-snip-

I'd say it's about 50/50 or 40/60 women/men.

Why? Well all the girls I've friendzoned I've slept with anyway so I doubt they think of it as being friendzoned.

Whereas guys complain to no end.

Also I think girls are more likely to blame themselves for the lack of attraction whereas guys like to blame everything else.

 

[Jenvas1306]

I first became friends with my current bf and then it evolved, so I dont think this 'friendzone' exists.
If you cant value her/him just as a friend, if its just worth t if you get sex out of it, then you migzht be better off with a hooker or a onenightstand.

and this:

-snip-

I'd say it's about 50/50 or 40/60 women/men.

Why? Well all the girls I've friendzoned I've slept with anyway so I doubt they think of it as being friendzoned.

Whereas guys complain to no end.

Also I think girls are more likely to blame themselves for the lack of attraction whereas guys like to blame everything else.

yep, men would probably rather do that, but if you involve sex like that you probably arent very concerned about being friends, so its not quite a friendzone.

 

[manic_depressive13]

Perhaps this will help you understand why everyone thinks that "a guy bring your friend = backstabber son of a *****"

Aww, you ninja'd me.
Well then I shall just take my video elsewhere...

OT:
I think she is making a good point about "nice guys" and the "friend zone" etc., so her video is definitely worth a look.

To address the main anecdote in that video, both people's behaviour was completely shocking and unacceptable. Firstly, the way he behaved towards her, given that she was a colleague, was completely unprofessional, unfair to himself and unfair to the other workers. I am surprised they weren't both fired by the end. The man for blatant favouritism and calling her a ****, the woman for not doing her own fucking work.

Secondly, his behaviour was completely cowardly. Rather than try to reason with the woman and explain to her his feelings, and why he thought her boyfriend was a bad person, he preferred to try to "win" her by being nice to her, despite apparently having no faith in her intelligence or judgement of character. They were both emotionally manipulative towards each other, the man for not being honest about his intentions to steal the woman from her boyfriend, and the woman for taking advantage of this fact. To try to paint the woman as the bad guy, and the man as a poor misguided fellow who was hard done by, is completely unfair. They were both cowardly and manipulative. The woman in the vlog even asks (paraphrased) "Why shouldn't he be allowed to complain about the way she was treating him?" Oh I don't know, maybe because he fucking put himself in that situation? If he didn't like the way she was treating him he should have stopped bending over backwards for her. Instead of taking this woman's personality into account and realising that she was a manipulative user he treated her like an object. They deserved each other.

Furthermore, what the fuck was that nonsense about women claiming they want a submissive man who exalts them and is always supportive? No one wants that. I don't know any feminists who claim to want to date a doormat who places them on a pedestal, so the suggestion that feminists demonise Nice Guys because of cognitive dissonance is completely ridiculous.

Finally, that's a loaded example. The Nice Guy stereotype is that these people then complain about the object of their affections, saying how unfair it is that they are treated like shit even after they acted as a doormat for that person. That is definitely entitlement because a normal person would walk away, not sit there slavering after that person, and then insulting them behind their backs for not making the "right" choices. People with healthy perceptions of the opposite sex don't behave that way. If those people saw the objects of their affections as human beings instead of "A wo(man)" they wouldn't get roped into this destructive behaviour under the delusional belief that behaving a certain way will win them the wo(man), regardless of who that person is on an individual level.

The same goes for women. I've heard a few women claiming that men only go after bimbos, that at the end of the day they just want sex, blah blah blah. Well no, you're just a ridiculously poor judge of character who pursues certain kinds of unpleasant people, then tries to compensate for their personal failings with sexist attitudes.