In defence of the 'Friendzoned'

Weaver

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Apr 28, 2008
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to me it's simple:
Make friends with someone.
Fall in love with them.
Find out they don't feel the same way, but want to stay friends.

You're in the friendzone.

If you've never had this happen, to where it becomes painful to simply be around that person; then I don't think you really understand what it's like. Personally, I start cutting the other person out of my life at this point. They might just see me as a friend, but I'm in love with them and it becomes too hard for me. I can't just shut off my feelings just like they can't turn them on.

Someone pretending to be friends with someone so they can have sex with them and failing is not the friendzone. And anyone who sees it as such is completely misunderstanding. Moreover, it really bothers me when someone is genuinely in love with someone and confesses to them only to be told they're pretending to be a "nice guy" because the women in question needs to justify her rejection. Some women seem to think they want a loving, caring mate but they don't in actuality.

"If he was REALLY a nice, caring guy, I would want to date him. If he was REALLY a being kind to me I'd certainly know it. But I don't want to date him so he must be FAKING it!"

Just admit you don't want to date guys like that, or he's too ugly, or too fat, or too whatever and stop lying to yourself.
 

Tarfeather

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Jared Jeanquart said:
I have enough friends. What I don't have is a girlfriend. If I try to get a girlfriend and instead wind up with a regular friend (that stops interacting with me the moment I stop trying), I think its reasonable that I'm a little miffed. Not at the person in question, but at life in general. Makes you wonder what it is that's wrong with you. Or what's wrong with the world/culture. And why no one can give you a straight answer on what you're supposed to do about it.

Just saying. You act as though you're confused why someone would be disappointed at not being allowed to have any sort of intimate physical contact with another human being. You're either asexual, or incredibly obtuse.
That sort of was my impression, too. Mind, I don't know the term much outside of examples like this: http://abstrusegoose.com/419

It's quite clear that strip depicts the "friend zone" as a place a person might be put in, not as a kind of relationship between two people in particular. One person rejects you - fine. Every girl you ever befriend wants to be just friends and nothing more? Uhm.. something seems wrong. With someone. Most likely all of society, but that's beside the point.


Being an introvert, the term "friendzone" seems indeed iffy though. I only call those friends who I care about intrinsically, who I "miss" if they're not around. So you could say a "friend" to me is something borderline romantic. At any given point in my life I've had only 3-4 of these. If a larger percentage of that would be females, that would actually be kinda nice. It would, in term of "romantic satisfaction" be an improvement. But even just this "friendship" thing is pretty hard to accomplish with girls. It requires being liked for what you are, and being able to share your inner thought, which in my case requires the other to be smart, self-reflecting, honest and at least a little bit interesting in "geeky" subjects. That's not something you find in many girls or women.

So in my view, the real issue is the female stereotype - the "friend zone" then is a rather unnecessary description of the fact that, if you have one friend of the opposite gender, missing out on romance is rather likely.
 

Tarfeather

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evilthecat said:
What I'm advocating against here is the idea that you should ever put someone else's happiness before your own, because actually doing so has the opposite effect to the one intended. Putting yourself to inconvenience for someone else because you like them and want to help them is fine, going out of your way to help someone when there's no conceivable benefit beyond a personal feeling of satisfaction is fine. Making yourself unhappy so that someone else will be happy is not fine, it is not admirable or selfless, it is in fact one of the most selfish and borderline abusive things you can do.
You wouldn't believe how many people don't understand this. I'm impressed enough to read that so explicitly that I must quote it.

However, I think you're coming to the wrong conclusion. Let's look over it again:
1. Everything one does, one does out of self-interest(intrinsically caring about somebody else is usually just a symptom of having taken their "happiness" into your own "mood feedback loop" - Yes, you do care about them, but ultimately you act as a response to some internal stimuli)
2. Being "unhappy" isn't the same as "working against your own desires". In fact, unhappyness(the bittersweet kind, exactly the kind in discussion here) can be something stimulating and "good". Just look at how all that romance fiction works.
3. You "care about someone more than yourself", so you want to make them happy disregarding your own happiness.
4. Wait, no, that's bullshit. There must be some other "desire" involved, one that at least currently is worth the unhappiness.

So what I'm saying is, if you find yourself acting a way that doesn't make sense, it doesn't necessarily mean you're doing the "wrong" thing. It might just mean you don't realize what you're actually after.

In the case of romance: Having someone to care about a lot, then becoming unhappy because they don't return your feelings, can actually be "preferable" to simply not having anyone to care about in the first place. It's less boring, it's less "empty". There are some pretty primal factors driving you there.

Of course, it's expensive, too. Someone has to pay the bill. I think trying to shift all the responsibility on the other person is a pretty common trope. Both for the people having an unrequited affection, and for the people being subject to such an affection. For obvious reasons, it's much harder to handle than a regular friendship.
 

Ieyke

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krazykidd said:
There is no such thing as friendzoned . People need to man up and stop being afraid of rejection. Ask a girl out . 50/50 chance she says yes . If she says no , move on. How is this so hard? I swear i have never heard so much "friendzone" talk, than on this site . Guys are turning into wimps.
There very much IS such a thing as the "friendzone".
I know from personal experience, having both been put there and having put girls there.

I've been turned down quite directly on the basis of being "too much like a brother" and "too good of a friend to risk", while they simultaneously agree that I'm actually what they're looking for.
After a long hard battle, I'm actually slowly escaping a friendzone. This has more to do with the woman in question trusting me and herself to be able to not make it weird if it fails.
It's a matter of her overcoming highschool drama notions of "you can't go back to being friends" that is actually stupidly common among adults who can't get over themselves.

In another case, I had a woman friendzoned because I was too hung up on someone else and just couldn't even open my mind to the idea of her. I eventually got past that and she and I were together.

In ANOTHER case, there's a woman who I'll agree is the closest thing to a sister I've ever had. She sees me too much as a brother to risk the complications of a relationship changing the ways we can treat each other. I can completely see her point. There's a whole sort of level of inherent comfort between close siblings that works because there are no major unspoken feelings, and it's a fundamental sort of bond you don't really have to "maintain" because no matter what happens you're "family".
Relationships add a whole lot of pressure. People trying to impress each other.
She and I both know we'd make an awesome couple (we lived together for half a year and she was as close to being my "wife" as possible without being anything more than friends, and it worked fantastically). Even our friends know it. I was willing to give it a shot and take the risk, she wasn't.
*shrug*

And then there's the girl who constantly hits on me when she doesn't have a boyfriend. I've friendzoned her because I can't see her as more than a friend.
Due to how things went with the 2nd girl I mentioned, I've sometimes wondered if maybe I'm just blinded to the possibility, but I'm not.
In a logical way we get along and think alike and have all the same interests, but emotionally I'm not even comfortable there. Our personalities just don't mesh.
Good friend, but JUST a friend.
And still, I wonder about how freakishly similar our opinions and interests are...


Rejection is the extreme of the spectrum, where the possibility of a relationship is just outright denied. Where a friend thinks the idea isn't even worth briefly entertaining and evaluating.

The Friendzone is a nebulous area of hesitation, doubt, fear of change, and preservation of something valued.
The perils of uncertainty and the lingering flicker of hope is why people get stuck in the Friendzone.

Rejection is just a dismissal and summary judgment of something as not an option.

.

Granted, I have no doubt that there are plenty of people who have been rejected and delude into thinking they've been friendzoned to console themselves.
It's not always easy to tell the difference if you're been rejected by a friend who is just letting you down easy.
 
Sep 3, 2011
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I think that men have the right to be upset if a woman does not return his feelings, there would be nothing odd if it was the other way around, feelings get hurt and hearts break men, oddly have both of these.

On the other hand being nice to someone does not give you the right to fuck them or to be mad they won't fuck you, if you feel your freindzoned tell her, i felt much better after being rejected then not knowing.
 

Yuno Gasai

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Nov 6, 2010
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The 'friend zone' isn't a legitimate thing, and as such doesn't require a defence. In fact, from the general consensus of people here (and on other sites I lurk) then the following is the most accurate description of the 'friend zone':

Weaver said:
Make friends with someone.
Fall in love with them.
Find out they don't feel the same way, but want to stay friends.
I still don't understand why people who consider themselves to be 'friend zoned' are in need of defence. They haven't done anything wrong, and they aren't being attacked - they've simply been rejected.

Some people take to rejection better than others (though I don't think anyone ever actually wants to be on the giving or receiving end), but what they do as a result of being rejected is nobody's fault but their own.

As someone else pointed out earlier, people are so quick to pounce on the accused party that they forget to think about how they might have felt. Not reciprocating someone's affection isn't a crime, and it isn't anything to be punished for. Nor does it make you a valid target of hate.
 

Ieyke

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Wolfhowl the shadow lurker said:
if you feel your freindzoned tell her, i felt much better after being rejected then not knowing.
Exactly.
Uncertainty and doubt are horrible horrible things.
 

Soundwave

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Ahri said:
I still don't understand why people who consider themselves to be 'friend zoned' are in need of defence. They haven't done anything wrong, and they aren't being attacked - they've simply been rejected.
They don't need to be defended from the person that isn't sleeping with them. The defense is the argument that they're not sexual predators, as a small vocal minority of internet feminists are claiming.
 

generals3

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evilthecat said:
Making yourself unhappy so that someone else will be happy is not fine, it is not admirable or selfless, it is in fact one of the most selfish and borderline abusive things you can do.
evilthecat said:
Okay.. replace "not treating that person as a human being" with "treating that person as a human being to whom you were not capable of being honest, towards whose feelings you have displayed no regard and yet whom you still somehow have the delusional audacity to feel you ever deserved."

Better?
I hope that by putting both paragraphs below each other you will be able how contradictory you're being. On one hand you say that making yourself unhappy for someone else is not good. But at the same time you describe someone doing just that as someone who is "treating that person as a human being to whom you were not capable of being honest, towards whose feelings you have displayed no regard and yet whom you still somehow have the delusional audacity to feel you ever deserved."

Having gone through such a scenario (back in them olden teenager days) I can say you're being extremely hypocritical. I'm sorry but no I don't feel like me not thinking tormenting myself is worth whatever benefits someone has from said friendship. If said person cannot understand that than that person is probably the bad friend/person. Because yes being around someone you have feelings for which aren't returned is not the best plan. (Well it may depend on the person)
 

Yuno Gasai

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Soundwave said:
They don't need to be defended from the person that isn't sleeping with them. The defense is the argument that they're not sexual predators, as a small vocal minority of internet feminists are claiming.
If a vocal minority want to make sweeping allegations on people who believe they've been friendzoned, that's their prerogative. I find their arguments entertaining, particularly when they fail to back their accusations up (such sensationalist standpoints are rarely supported by evidence or even anything remotely close to a case study). I still question whether or not they need defending, though - these accusations aren't particularly threatening as such. I'd say they're probably closer to being annoying than anything else.
 

Tarfeather

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Now that I'm in thought about this, let me share an observation that could be unrelated to the "friend zone", depending on how you define it, but it's very much related to being locked in a state of "sexual desire, yet non-sexuality".

I have four very clear(and many more unclear cases) in my personal history where a girl would welcome my increased attention. So what do I mean by increased attention? Always responding to what they say, always thinking about the implications for a time, always trying to understand them and say things that could make them feel better.

I have the distinct impression that in these cases, the girl would actually welcome all that. She would start placing higher value on the relationship(I wouldn't necessary call it friendship, because that IMO implies an established mutual bond). I think there have been situations like this where I was one of the few most important contacts to the girl, possibly the only person they had who they could trust to.. well, "be a friend". Actually care about them, what they are, and what they say, without the intention of some kind of exploit.

Personally, I've always had friends whom I could rely on for that. It certainly is important. But when there's two people you've known for 2, 4, 8 years and whom you can rely on in any situation, you stop seeing it as such a "critical" thing. It's like food in a western country. You have it, you can rely on having it, you don't really know what it's like not to have it.

So what you have is an asymmetrical situation:
- The thing you desire from them is related to sexuality and romance
- The thing they desire from you is related to trust and care

For this to work, we need compromises. But when it comes to sexuality, girls don't *do* compromises. (*) All the examples I've mentioned, in this situation would get very uncomfortable: Clearly, they need something from you. But the thing they could give in return, they do not wish to give.

Now, this is a different type of "friend zone". The situation isn't, as apparently happens to many others posting here, that X loves Y, but Y considers X "just" a friend, so that the easiest choice for X is just to walk out. No, in this case if X walks out, they leave someone who needs them standing in the rain. And that's not a fun choice if you actually care about the other.

Furthermore, this is a pattern. Maybe not for everyone, but at least in my experience. Some people in this world are treated pretty badly, and lack a certain "being accepted" in a non-superficial way. Yet, these same people, at least the female ones, do not seem to link this kind of acceptance(which I'm tempted to call "love" - because, yeah, sure, I love my friends in not that fundamentally a different way a husband loves a wife, or a mother loves a child) to sexuality or romance. Which is, you know, weird.

Anyway, not sure what I'm babbling on about. I guess this is a pretty separate discussion.

(*) This is actually pretty funny. Apparently, involving any kind of sexuality in a friendship is *frightening* to many girls. But visiting a friend, going out to party with his gang, then getting drunk and starting something with one of those(who are strangers to her) in front of the friend's eyes is fine? Heh.
 

Soundwave

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Ahri said:
If a vocal minority want to make sweeping allegations on people who believe they've been friendzoned, that's their prerogative. I find their arguments entertaining, particularly when they fail to back their accusations up (such sensationalist standpoints are rarely supported by evidence or even anything remotely close to a case study). I still question whether or not they need defending, though - these accusations aren't particularly threatening as such. I'd say they're probably closer to being annoying than anything else.
Well, you know how the internet is with sweeping generalizations and allegations(un-ironic-statement). Personally, I'd rather see that sort of argument laughed out of the internet, but for some reason people keep taking them seriously!
 

Ieyke

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Weaver said:
to me it's simple:
Make friends with someone.
Fall in love with them.
Find out they don't feel the same way, but want to stay friends.

You're in the friendzone.
I'd argue that that's outright "rejection by a friend".

The Friendzone is when you find out that they have some sort of feelings too and are unwilling to risk your existing friendship to explore the possibility.
The Friendzone sucks ass so badly because you KNOW the possibility is there, but you have to act like it isn't or else figure out how to make it happen.

Weaver said:
If you've never had this happen, to where it becomes painful to simply be around that person; then I don't think you really understand what it's like.
Agreed.
Weaver said:
Personally, I start cutting the other person out of my life at this point. They might just see me as a friend, but I'm in love with them and it becomes too hard for me. I can't just shut off my feelings just like they can't turn them on.
Agreed, except the bit where "they can't turn them on" implies rejection. "They can't take the chance" would be more accurate to a Friendzone situation, IMO.

Weaver said:
Someone pretending to be friends with someone so they can have sex with them and failing is not the friendzone. And anyone who sees it as such is completely misunderstanding.
Agreed. How has this gotten confused with the Friendzone? This is just an even higher level of the common douchebaggery of guys lying to women to sleep with them....

Weaver said:
Moreover, it really bothers me when someone is genuinely in love with someone and confesses to them only to be told they're pretending to be a "nice guy" because the women in question needs to justify her rejection. Some women seem to think they want a loving, caring mate but they don't in actuality.

"If he was REALLY a nice, caring guy, I would want to date him. If he was REALLY a being kind to me I'd certainly know it. But I don't want to date him so he must be FAKING it!"

Just admit you don't want to date guys like that, or he's too ugly, or too fat, or too whatever and stop lying to yourself.
Wait, is that a thing now?
SMH
 

Tarfeather

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Ahri said:
The 'friend zone' isn't a legitimate thing, and as such doesn't require a defence.
I think we've shown quite a few ways to use the word 'friend zone' in which it's both a real thing, and a legitimate concern? I think this whole thread may be a response to a pretty bold (and unsurprisingly offensive) statement by Jim Sterling that entertaining the idea of a "friend zone" and/or suggesting that it's happened to you immediately means that you think you deserve getting sex for being nice. Which is something I could take apart in so many places, but I guess the main issue is that it puts a bunch of people in a category that doesn't make a lot of sense.

leyke said:
Relationships add a whole lot of pressure. People trying to impress each other.
Take it from me, impressed women are the worst love partners. There are much, much better foundations for a relationship. Of course, if you try for such a stable foundation, you'll exclude a good share of the potential "candidates", but eh..
 

Soundwave

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Maiev Shadowsong said:
It's a stupid concept created by those with a fragile sense of self worth, to shift responsibility away from a personal incompatibility or an unrequited romantic interest. Humans do it all the time; we have excuses and labels for every shortcoming you can think of. "It's not that I'm unattractive to them," "It's not that we simply aren't sexually compatible." "It's because I got put in the 'friendzone.'"

Puh-leze.

Have you put your same sex friends in the "friendzone"? No. Of course not. They're just friends. And that's the fucking point. Men and women can be just friends too. It's not a state. It's not a condition. It's not a "thing". You're just fucking friends.

[HEADING=1]Men and Women Can be Friends[/HEADING]​
Illidan Stormrage Couldn't just be friends! Now look what's happened. Maybe if you had been a more emotionally supportive jailer the Black Temple wouldn't be so full of demons.
 

Ieyke

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Tarfeather said:
leyke said:
Relationships add a whole lot of pressure. People trying to impress each other.
Take it from me, impressed women are the worst love partners. There are much, much better foundations for a relationship. Of course, if you try for such a stable foundation, you'll exclude a good share of the potential "candidates", but eh..
Exactly.
Part of the reason several of my female friends and I have encroached on the Friendzone so many times is because we know we ARE the stable foundations. There's a reason we're such good friends in the first place and have been for sooo soooo long.

Excluding a "good share" of the potential candidates by avoiding those who'd make terrible foundations...puts it lightly.

Nonetheless, even if "impress" is the wrong word, there's always a period of time where you're trying to put your best foot forward and not stumble into ways to lodge your foot in your mouth.