In defence of the 'Friendzoned'

[BloatedGuppy]

The misogynist part of his post is not lost on me, it just pales in comparison to how little stock he apparently puts in men's ability to control their libido. I, just as you, am puzzled at how can hold this belief, especially if he knows and understands the context of the manipulation going on.

Eh. It's pretty common to cast men as passive victims of either their raging libidos or of the cataclysmic sexiness of the average woman. It's one of many ways in which certain individuals abdicate responsibility for all their actions to forces that are ostensibly outside of their control. My penis made me do it.

and who makes friends on a dating site?

People who get together on a regular date and one or both parties immediately discover they have no sexual chemistry.

 

[Villain Protagonist]

I think he means in the sense that she says they were never dating. If thats the case what the hell other reason would he be on a dating site.

 

[generals3]

There is.

I've done it. Several times in fact.

It involves genuinely accepting that a person who is not actually attracted to you is, as far as you should be concerned in that moment, always wrong for you. Once you stop clinging to the power fantasy that maybe, just maybe you'll do or say the right thing and sex will result then the rest is remarkably easy. You grieve, and you move on. If you don't move on, it's probably because you're still clinging to enough hope that you haven't grieved yet.

And clinging to hope is humanity's specialty. And on other point is that if you're constantly reminded to why you want to be romantically involved with said person (by being around him/her that much) it simply fuels the hope, it creates a desire for hope.

Again, I disagree.

It's only a problem if you're going to allow yourself to be constantly haunted by unresolved feelings as opposed to, you know, actually resolving them.

I'd say breaking off is a very efficient way at resolving them. You have a problem related to feelings => you fix them by taking distance from the source of the problems.

Now, emotional distance.. sure.. I mean, if you've been fantasizing about someone non-stop or if you've been bringing virtually everything in your life back to them that's probably something you should force yourself not to do (not hard, just takes some discipline). I understand the feeling of becoming obsessed with someone, but again.. it passes if you don't indulge it.

Not at all. If everything reminds you of said person it's probably too late. However that person reminding you of that person seems quite straight forward. Hence why taking distance.

Physical distance, however, is meaningless. If I sit in my room for a month moping about how so-and-so rejected me, it's not going to hurt any less than just spending that month hanging out as friends in full acceptance that that's all that's ever going to happen so I might as well take what I can get.

No it is not useless considering it allows you not to continuously being confronted with the person of your desires and why you desire that person. It is very great way too get that person out of your mind and move on.

That said, if bailing out is helpful for you then fine. Again, I'm not saying you shouldn't act on your emotions, just don't pretend that they constitute an excuse.

Excuse for what? For taking distance? I'd say they're a great excuse. Just like not having feelings is a great excuse for the person of interest not to get romantically involved. And this is where the logic breaks down, why is one person's feelings NOT an excuse and the other's is?

It depends.

If someone pisses you off because they're poking you in the eye with a stick, then yeah. It's probably best to get away from that and try and avoid them.

But if someone pisses you off because you simply feel insecure and inferior around them, for example, or because you're constantly afraid they will turn on you despite having no reason to believe that, then that's nothing to do with that person at all. It's an emotion which comes from you and one you'd probably do well to examine before you dump it on anyone else.

Sure, BUT, wouldn't you agree getting away from said person would still take that anger away?

 

[Micalas]

So what exactly did you do for 3 months? [small] and who makes friends on a dating site?[/small]

I won't go into detail (and no, it's not what you're thinking) but we had a great time. Or at least I thought so, seeing as how we spent 8-10 hours a day together. But in the end it didn't work out. Maybe the friendzone doesn't exist, but maybe, just maybe I broke a hole in the space-time continuum and found myself in a universe where it does.

 

[EvilRoy]

What I find most curious is Smilomaniac's apparent belief he is likely to be easily manipulated, despite the insight he holds on the signs and context of said manipulation. Is this an inference that he believes men are incapable of higher thought when the possibility of sex is provided? I am genuinely puzzled that someone could believe they have so little control over their lives.

It might just be with consideration of how people are typically conned and manipulated. As the saying goes "Give me a smart mark over a dumb one every time."

That is to say, the better you think you know the system, or the more unmanipulatable you think you are, the easier it is to fool you. It usually comes across as conceit:

"If there was a con going on I would smell it a mile away. Timeshare? Sniff Sniff, no con here, this is all gold."
"I'm smarter than any con man, I'll just let myself be lead along for a bit and flip it around on him. Wheres my wallet?"
"This guy gets me, he knows how smart I am and just wants to laugh about all these other rubes he has taken for a ride. Yeah sure, here's my address."

With the dumb marks it tends to come across as obstinance:
"If it don't sound right, it ain't right. Piss off."
"This guy looks like a weasel. I'll keep my hands in my pockets until he's done."
"If this weirdo keeps trying to get buddy buddy with me, I'm gonna sock him."

 

[DudeistBelieve]

A relationship is a hell lot more than just sex.

That's a fascinating obvious truth, but I'm not sure how it's relevant to anything I said.

the majority of what you said was just quoting what I had said. And you didn't cite in proper MLA format.

 

[Lonewolfm16]

I said everything I needed to on this topic in my thread on it so consider my intro paragraph my response: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.409936-Can-We-Just-Use-Friendzone-to-Describe-a-Situation-Please

 

[RandV80]

The whole 'friendzone' thing has become nonsensical in my opinion. The concept has been around for a while, but it was more recent that guys started meme'ing it on the internet making women look bad. In response, the ladies created a counter straw man painting the friend-zone sap or the 'nice guy' as a sad and sometimes sick individual. A certain percent of the male population, typically those who don't have problems with the ladies, jumped on board with this counter-meme.

Reality is things typically fall somewhere in between. Sometimes you'll have the male or female individual falling into one of the above polar opposites, but usually neither party is really at fault. Since the concept has become a hot topic for discussion I always thought a good TV example of this 'neutral' zone was Stargate Universe, with Eli/Chloe/Lt.Matthew. Note that the word 'friendzone' is never brought up or implied, it's just the situation that naturally occurred.

 

[The Material Sheep]

Unrequited Love has been around forever. So I'm not sure what the issue here is. Are people seeing a woman who did not return romantic affection towards a man as a negative towards the woman? It is possible for a straight woman to just want to be friends with a guy, but doesn't find him sexually or romantically desirable. I suppose I'm just not understanding what people are denying about the concept of the friend zone. It does exist. It's just no ones fault that someone is or isn't attracted to another person.

 

[WOPR]

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.

Except it is a thing, it's what girls whip out when they want to continue nagging you for favors because you're smarter than they are, but they don't want to put out to put it in the most blunt terms.

To put it in more realistic and less vulgar terms. I HAVE asked girls out, unafraid of the rejection, to which I get the reply "Oh... W-Well I like you... But as a friend... You're like a brother to me. I'm sorry, you'll be great to find anyone, you're such a sweet guy."
I wasn't looking to marry you I was just looking to take you out for dinner, how will you even know how you like me if you never bothered to get to know?
Then of course not even 2 weeks later "Hey my computer isn't working right, would you mind coming over to fix it?"
This is the point where I get ticked and tell them to screw off, I gave them a chance and they took the walking jockstrap that can't even get a G.E.D. (let alone spell "G.E.D.")
And there's the pattern of that.

They don't want to even get remotely intimate with a guy because they don't find him attractive (or something else I don't know of) but continue to want favors from him because he's successful.

It's a cruel fate, but I guess girls that friend-zone are just one [explicit] away from being gold-diggers ;P
(I'm happily in a relationship now I might add I just feel a personal story will clear up the "friend zone" nonsense and how people who haven't experienced it first hand tend to presume it just mean you keep telling her how pretty she is but never actually ask her out)

EDIT: This should not sound NEAR that whiny or personal. I mean it is a personal story but that's just for reference, not just fabricated from nonsense. Still sorry if it comes off as complain'y. Just late at night and I'm trying to finish the wiring of my costume.

 

[Filben]

Nope, that's not being "friendzoned". That's simply unrequited attraction. What is sinister is transforming the simple statement "She (/he) is not attracted to me" into an active and intentional notion through grammatical manipulation: "She (/he) friendzoned me." That's sinister, because the implication is it's her fault she's not attracted to you. She did it to you, so it's her fault.

That might be true in english. In my native language it doesn't work that way and nobody uses the translated term for "friendzoned" because our conjugation is more complex (you can't just add one letter) and making the word "friendzone" into an verb (something SHE did) would make the word incomprehensible for most. Therefore nobody use that term as an verb. In translation most people use it like "I'm in her friendzone".

And of course it exists because the fact behind exists (the fact of being rejected but staying in a friendship). It is just a summarized term for examples like that: "I wish I could meet a guy like you, funny, smart, good looking, but not you." or "yes, you are funny, handsome, adorable but I don't want a relationship beyond friendship". I know a lot of cliques with that guy who's the Mister Niceguy, a guy from a character-perspective women romanticise about (yea, it is not hard to hear such conversations in the underground railway or tram). "Than why don't you date Peter?" "Well, yeah, he's very nice, handsome and such... but you know, it's Peter!" A hell of an explanation.

Sure, it is "simple" rejection. Friendzone just describes that you are rather her/his friend instead of his girl- or her boyfriend. Nothing more or less.

 

[SweetWarmIce]

If you're friend zoned she isn't attracted to you. That's all there is to it.

 

[b3nn3tt]

Except it is a thing, it's what girls whip out when they want to continue nagging you for favors because you're smarter than they are, but they don't want to put out to put it in the most blunt terms.

Sorry, but that is exactly the kind of mindset that has made the term as reviled as it is. If a girl is "nagging" you for favours in the first place, then what are you actually getting out of the relationship anyway?

To put it in more realistic and less vulgar terms. I HAVE asked girls out, unafraid of the rejection, to which I get the reply "Oh... W-Well I like you... But as a friend... You're like a brother to me. I'm sorry, you'll be great to find anyone, you're such a sweet guy."
I wasn't looking to marry you I was just looking to take you out for dinner, how will you even know how you like me if you never bothered to get to know?
Then of course not even 2 weeks later "Hey my computer isn't working right, would you mind coming over to fix it?"
This is the point where I get ticked and tell them to screw off, I gave them a chance and they took the walking jockstrap that can't even get a G.E.D. (let alone spell "G.E.D.")
And there's the pattern of that.

Could you clarify exactly what the girl has done wrong in this situation? Because what comes across is that you were friends, you wanted it to be more and she wasn't interested in you romantically. She then asked you for a friendly favour, and dated somebody who she was interested in romantically. I don't understand why either of those two things would earn your ire.

They don't want to even get remotely intimate with a guy because they don't find him attractive (or something else I don't know of) but continue to want favors from him because he's successful.

Or, they ask favours of someone that, as far as they're aware, is their friend. If at any point in any relationship, be it friendship, romantic, familial, or any other type, you don't feel that you are getting anything out of the relationship, you have the ability to end it. It's not like any girl is forcing you to do these favours for her.

 

[Echopunk]

words here

It sounds like you have/had a really toxic attitude towards women in general, which might be part of what was putting the girl in your example off. There are any number of subtle things that pop up to warn potential partners away. It can be as simple as a smell. We're built from the ground up to seek healthy partners to produce offspring with. It doesn't take a lot for a normal person to disqualify someone. As toxic as your attitude came off in your post, it probably leaked through in your speech and mannerisms. Her brain might have been giving her little "run for the hills" messages. However, you did show interest, so there is probably some primitive center in the brain that says "He might be a creeper, but don't rule him out completely." I'm pretty sure it isn't even a conscious thing in most cases.

Someone asking you for help after "shooting you down" might just mean the person has a sense of entitlement, and who doesn't these days. Selfishness is not a gender-locked trait.

Still, men and women are, biologically, competitors for the same limited resource pool. Evolution has caused both sexes to invent advantages to secure their individual survival and the survival of the species as a whole.

It is always easier to put the blame on someone else than it is to look at yourself, honestly, and realize you are at least 50% of what's wrong in the equation.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

I subscribe to the belief there is no such thing as the friendzone. If someone is not romantically interested in you, they are not romantically interested in you.

Fact is, on top of this we will always 'want' but sometimes we can't have what we want. Its even more difficult in the age of the internet when so many people are visible and it become easy and quick to communicate and as quick to be rebuffed and ignored.

The failing business I quit wasn't a "sinking-ship", that didn't stop me calling it one.

I don't care for the term "friend-zone" (it feels a little too American sit-com to me) as a whole, but it is perfectly adequate at conveying what it intends to.

I hate the friendzone since it implies men and women cannot be friends and the only reason for different genders to get together is sex.

Well... Why are you imposing that?

I don't think it implies that at all. It's only relevant in a circumstance where there's a mis-match in feelings in a personal relationship. You don't have to think of it in terms of platonic friends being mutually "friend-zoned". That's likely you taking a little shorthand phrase that pop-culture has farted up to describe a certain situation and running too far with it.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

I thought friendzone was simply being in the position of being relegated to ONLY being a friend to a person who you want a romantic relationship with. It isn't necessarily sex as Jim seemed to slate it as but just a more meaningful/intimate relationship.

There's nothing wrong with lamenting this position. It is essentially saying that a person you're interested in isn't interested in you. A conflict as old as time.

Now now, Lightknight. If you keep acting like it's that simple, people might cotton on to the fact that it is.

Then what would we talk about?

 

[Insanely Asinine]

I thought friendzone was simply being in the position of being relegated to ONLY being a friend to a person who you want a romantic relationship with. It isn't necessarily sex as Jim seemed to slate it as but just a more meaningful/intimate relationship.

There's nothing wrong with lamenting this position. It is essentially saying that a person you're interested in isn't interested in you. A conflict as old as time.

Now now, Lightknight. If you keep acting like it's that simple, people might cotton on to the fact that it is.

Then what would we talk about?

We could talk about how we, if you're in the United States, pay farmers not to farm on their land and how we are not having enough farming simulators produced by Germany to teach people how to actually farm and silliness like that.

 

[Echopunk]

I'd think it means they thought they were on good enough terms you wouldn't mind doing them a favor. A request like that isn't entitlement. How you react if someone says no to a request would display your sense of entitlement. Kind of like how that guy reacts to the fact a girl turned him down...

If I turn someone down (for anything, a date, a loan, a lift, whatever), no matter how valid my reason is, I will not ask them for a favor/help again until I have been able to do something for them. Just a weird personality quirk of mine, I guess.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

So, instead of it being the fault of the object of one's affection, it's the whole Universe that is making one a victim? Sorry, that doesn't sound like any less of loser talk.

Of course it's loser talk. It's whiny. It's feeling bad for yourself. And people, collectively, do it all the time regarding practically everything in life. It's pretty damn human to succumb to such feelings every once in a while. It's only a problem when a person refuses to let it go and move on. That can sometimes be the case with someone stuck in the friendzone, but again, circumstances differ. Context matters.

"I'm cursed!" "If I didn't have bad luck, I'd have no luck at all!" "This just isn't my night." All statements that discharge personal responsibility to some extent, and none of them indicate to me a tremendous weakness of character.

Actually, I'd say they do. And if someone around me was claiming to be cursed or something like that to explain why they, for example, were getting fired from a job, I'd tell them to pull their head out of their ass.

So human beings aren't allowed even a momentary blip of self-centered lamentation regarding their circumstances every now and then? The second a person says anything that ejects even partial responsibility for his or her situation, you immediately lump them into some category of lesser being? No off-hand sardonic remarks, no irony, no temporary "woe-is-me" when life throws you a curve-ball?

If someone internalizes and maintains the ejection of personal responsibility, that's obviously a problem. But sometimes people just feel shitty and want to vent for a moment, and I think it's silly to immediately judge them for it. And this before even bothering to talk about the fact that we operate without complete information all the fucking time - making fate a very real if often misunderstood thing.

The internet's social justice echo chamber is not, believe it or not, a perfect reflection of the real world.

What on earth are you talking about? This doesn't have a damn thing to do with social justice. You aren't making the mistake of taking a stand on this just because you have some kind of bias against the group you think it's connected to, are you?

I'm talking about the fact that a bunch of people staunchly denying the very existence of "the friendzone" on instagram and forums across the internet doesn't automatically make it so. I've very clearly demonstrated how and why this concept does, in fact, exist, and your only recourse seems to be "but it's shitty" or "they should pull their heads out of their asses". So I've lumped you in with the "movement" to abolish this term because I'm not seeing any convincing arguments separate from what appears to be your raw personal preference. If I'm mistaken in labeling so, I apologize.

My point stands: being extra offended by something doesn't mean it isn't real. Hell, as badly as some douchey dudes misapply the term as an offensive and demeaning accusation, there are actually some people who intentionally and despicably manipulate "friends" via their romantic feelings. Even by the very worst-case definition of "friendzone", the fucking thing plainly exists (if rarely).

 

[Diddy_Mao]

When I was younger and still in the dating pool. Being "Friendzoned" meanth nothing more or less than "I have romantic feelings for Girl X and she's more interested in just being friends."
Whether or not you accepted that friendship and moved on with your life is a case by case thing. (Personaly if she was worth possibly dating then a friendship is a given. Her disinterest in touching my dingus doesn't invalidate that.)

Somehow over the years it's taken on a sinister feel to it where it seems that some fellows have decided that if they find a girl attractive enough to "spend time on" then the girl is somehow obliged to return the feelings and that being "Friendzoned" is something girls do with gleeful malice only after grtting a few free meals and drinks out of you.

To the chronically friendzoned I offer the same advice I've given to any friend and family member who find themselves frequently on the business end of bad breakups.

"Eventually you need to entertain the idea that the only common element in your tragic romantic history is you."