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Let's talk about the friend zone

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The friend zone is born out of the sexist notion that a girl is obligated to repay a man showing basic human decency to her with sex :/

Coming from someone who was friendzoned in the past and who then did it to another woman, this is complete and utter BS. Real feelings and longing for committed relationships were involved, not bizarre notions of "I'm nice man, I demand sex now." It's such a total lie and oversimplification of the emotional state and motives of people in an attempt to create an easy fictional target for you to attack.

I will say that people friendzone themselves and more often than not aren't true friends to the person they desire. Their acts are selfish and they're not themselves. That's what happened with me. I was a wishy washy coward who wouldn't make my intentions clear, got desperate when my half-assed nonsense didn't work, and got rejected. The girl started seeing someone, I moved on myself, but in the process we became real friends without either one awkwardly trying to win over the other. Then one day when we were hanging out like usual, the day became more like a date and I made a move. It felt right to both of us. Nothing planned, neither of us saw it coming, no "trying" to be "nice." In the end I didn't pull myself out of a friendzone... I was actually being a different person from the person she initially knew: myself instead of a selfish nice guy fraud. A decade later and we're still together.
 
There are some strange definition of friendzone in this thread. As far as I know, its simply when you're attracted to someone and they aren't attracted to you. So you're stuck as friends.

Yep, this.

I've never subscribed to the belief that having sex/a relationship with a friend is dependent on some kind of a time limit. In my experience, the only time I've seen someone lose interest in a person that they were otherwise initially interested in was because they got to know the other person a bit more, and they didn't like what they saw, and thus lost interest. It had nothing to do with the other party waiting too long to make a move.


Also, question: what if you're attracted to a friend, but also genuinely enjoy their company?
 
Every single one of you are in my friend zone.

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Incidentally, I've also learned that when your friends are actually into you, they make it rather obvious.

Every single one of you are in my friend zone.

It's because my penis is too big, isn't it? :(
 
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Chris Rock said:
Men don't have platonic friends okay? we just have women we haven't fucked yet. As soon as I figure this out, Im in there! I mean we got some platonic friends, we all do. I mean I got some platonic friends, but they are all by accident. Every platonic friend I got was some woman I was trying to fuck , I made a wrong turn somewhere, and ended up in the friend zone. Oh no, I'm in the friend zone!

This has been, for over 20 years, the go-to definition of FriendZone, popularized primarily by Chris Rock in "Bring the Pain," which aired in 1996, although Friends did beat him to the term 2 years earlier. The origin of both terms is similar, and is basically considered to be a sort of purgatory or failure state in attempting to fuck a woman.

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In Ross' case, it's specifically describing the sort of behavior that's (deservedly) mocked, wherein his friendliness is ultimately transactional. He's "laying the groundwork," meaning his kindness is largely manipulative. Eventually, you put enough niceness into the relationship, she is obligated to see him as someone worth fucking.

Chris Rock is obviously way more blunt with it, describing all platonic male-female relationships as fuckups on the man's part.

The Friend Zone has always been this. It's never not been. "I got FriendZoned" is how a guy explains to themselves that their weird passive-aggressive attempts to get laid didn't work, but weren't ultimately his fault. Something/Someone conspired to keep him from getting laid like he planned, be it the woman herself, other guys being better at being manipulative, anti-male culture, refusal to recognize his innate winning qualities, she's a lesbian, etc. etc.
 
Just talk to people like they are people damn, it's not that hard

It's not, but people fucking hate taking responsibility for their shitty insecurities, so they get really angry at people who won't set life to easy mode for them just because they're nice and deserve it.
 
This is good, but it was also something that was perpetuated by people.

How many single moms told their sons to be themselves? Teachers?

Remember the 80s where also an era of broken families and sky high divorce rates. Many sons lost that male mentor to help them navigate the waters of dating and romance, so pop culture filled that void.

This is 100% true in my case. I was raised in a house full of women. Grew up a "sensitive guy." Barely dated, afraid to be masculine and honest with my romantic feelings.

Reading pickup artist stuff and some other books like Marc Manson's​ "Models" taught me how to act like a "man." That stuff gets a bad rap, but if you strip out the assholish shit, there's some good underlying messages IMO. For the most part, women want assertive men who make it clear what they are interested in. Basically the opposite of orbiters, who are the type that get friendzoned and are bitter about it. I've been friendzoned and IDGAF - because I'm either ok with being just a friend or I move on.
 
How many single moms told their sons to be themselves? Teachers?

I heard Tyler Durden say something similar in Fight Club.

This is 100% true in my case. I was raised in a house full of women. Grew up a "sensitive guy." Barely dated, afraid to be masculine and honest with my romantic feelings.

Reading pickup artist stuff and some other books like Marc Manson's​ "Models" taught me how to act like a "man." That stuff gets a bad rap, but if you strip out the assholish shit, there's some good underlying messages IMO

I mean, it's starting to sound like we're cool with blaming women for creating guys who blame women for their own insecurities, here.

That's not what we're doing right?
 
Where does this theory comes from that all the people who cry about being friend zoned are doing that because they couldn't have sex?


Isn't that kind of sexist thinking too? That all guys are just wanting sex, especially if they can't handle rejection?
I think it comes from the comedic state of denial people who invoke it seem to be in. "I just see you as a friend" is a polite way to say "I don't find you sexually attractive." Not "I definitely would have found you sexually attractive a week ago."

I married a good friend of mine. I know plenty of people who started as friends and then transitioned to fucking each-other. Granted some people don't date friends no matter how sexy they are, but instead of seeing that as a place you were "put" an adult might see that as a hang up that individual has, not a magic spell women cast.

So I think to a lot of us "I'm in the friend zone" has this weird/embarrassing assumption you were ever in another zone. It absolves the whiner from reconciling with the fact that someone thinks they are pleasant to talk to but unnatractive romantically.

The other thing is just the context it's used in is often kinda dopey. It lives in the same neighborhood as "man card" and "pussy whipped"
 
Yep, this.

I've never subscribed to the belief that having sex/a relationship with a friend is dependent on some kind of a time limit. In my experience, the only time I've seen someone lose interest in a person that they were otherwise initially interested in was because they got to know the other person a bit more, and they didn't like what they saw, and thus lost interest. It had nothing to do with the other party waiting too long to make a move.


Also, question: what if you're attracted to a friend, but also genuinely enjoy their company?

At some point someone who may be interested loses interests in you because they start believing that you aren't interested. They may find someone else, or just get distracted with other things. There's an instance where they do get bored of the platonic relationship because they're looking for romance, but if you made it a romantic one sooner rather than later they would have a reason to stay interested/around.

That's why you act now while there's an opportunity before it is gone. Things change fast.
 
Its a real thing. Anyone using calculated kindness to somehow bring a girl around to wanting to fuck you is a moron. Any girl receiving calculated kindness and taking advantage of it is culpable as well. Flip the genders and it still holds water.

Just ask the damn girl out and make your intentions clear. You'll save yourself time and heartache. I wish someone smacked the shit out of me when I was younger and dropped that truth bomb on me.

Don't fear rejection. If you feel you are a good person and have your time and affection to offer someone, if they turn it down chalk it up to their loss, not yours.
 
At some point someone who may be interested loses interests in you because they start believing that you aren't interested. They may find someone else, or just get distracted with other things. There's an instance where they do get bored of the platonic relationship because they're looking for romance, but if you made it a romantic one sooner rather than later they would have a reason to stay interested/around.

That's why you act now while there's an opportunity before it is gone. Things change fast.

But again, this only works if the female is interested in you in the first place.

Scenario 1: they found someone else = has nothing to do with their level of attraction to you
Scenario 2: they get distracted = has nothing to do with their level of attraction to you
Scenario 3: they get bored of a platonic relationship because they want something more = again, has nothing to do with their level of attraction to you

Oddly enough, the Ladder Theory, while no doubt written by someone who was probably a douche, gets the concept down pretty accurately (and this applies to both genders, btw).
 
Coming from someone who was friendzoned in the past and who then did it to another woman, this is complete and utter BS.

I think there is this habit in people to love calling out others if they look like they are riding the high horse.
There is this weird satisfaction in getting to say "you think you are nice but this shows you are actually not nice, so, HA!"

It's quite like the "you thought you knew this, but actually..." things people love to say and read.

There is a sense of being psychologically one step ahead of someone else what comes to moral decency. That you are able to see this pattern one step further. And when a thing like this turns into a meme, it's easy to lump all same looking behavior together and claim they all behave like that because of that one exact reason. You'll get to school people and show you are against sexism at the same time.

Now, I'm not saying there aren't people who are trying to gain points by "being nice" and getting angry if they can't get laid even though they have collected so many points compared to others. I mean, the one guy, whose name I've forgotten, who went on a shooting spree to kill college girls was the absolute extreme example of a person like that. But I don't think this is the only thing people mean when they talk about friend zones.


This has been, for over 20 years, the go-to definition of FriendZone, popularized primarily by Chris Rock in "Bring the Pain," which aired in 1996, although Friends did beat him to the term 2 years earlier. The origin of both terms is similar, and is basically considered to be a sort of purgatory or failure state in attempting to fuck a woman.

These are comedy acts though. It's not as if they are telling life truths there. They are meant to be raunchy and over-exaggerated anecdotal things playing with gender stereotypes.
 
Being sexually attracted to a man or woman who likes you and considers you nothing more than a friend to the point that taking it any further will cause them inconvenience or distress can indeed take the form of unrequited love (or lust) with time. Of course, there are those who blame the wrong things, and those who do the right ones, and those who bitch either way lol.
 
The friend zone doesn't exist, if a girl or guy likes you then it will happen. If not, it won't. This stupid fiction of the friend zone needs to die.
 
I heard Tyler Durden say something similar in Fight Club.



I mean, it's starting to sound like we're cool with blaming women for creating guys who blame women for their own insecurities, here.

That's not what we're doing right?

I'm blaming the dad that left me without a male role model. My mom and sisters did what they could.

The friend zone doesn't exist, if a girl or guy likes you then it will happen. If not, it won't. This stupid fiction of the friend zone needs to die.

This is incredibly naive and does not match up with reality.
 
These are comedy acts though. It's not as if they are telling life truths there. They are meant to be raunchy and over-exaggerated anecdotal things playing with gender stereotypes.

Nevertheless, they popularized the notion, and definitely popularized its name.

I'm not blaming them for the idea, because it existed before them, and it definitely existed after they shone a spotlight on it, but "The FriendZone" exists in popular culture largely due to that one-two punch.

The FriendZone as it its largely been used and understood over the past twenty years goes back to those two. It's a place insecure men like to say they've been put after not successfully (and dishonestly) manipulating a woman into fucking them
 
So I think to a lot of us "I'm in the friend zone" has this weird/embarrassing assumption you were ever in another zone.

I don't think they think they were in another zone. I don't think they think they are in any zone, until they get put into the friend zone from which they think they can't ever get away from.

It's a zoneless space, a wild frontier for the adventurous person, until the zoneless space becomes the friend zone. Then it is the only zone there is and there ever will be.
 
I'm blaming the dad that left me without a male role model. My mom and sisters did what they could.



This is incredibly naive and does not match up with reality.

It isn't naive, it is about being direct and assertive. I know most people don't like direct these days, but I do not play the game of acting. I say it straight and truthful. That is just me though, and that is why I haven't ever been put in the friend zone. Not saying I am a baller or anything, but telling the truth and not being passive gets you a lot farther with most people then trying to be nice. Told plenty of girls that I am not attracted to them at all in that way, and have been told the same many times. That is life.
 
In what is probably the greatest irony of my life, my best friend for the past 20 years is a woman that I "put in the friend-zone" in high school, and I was generally aware of it while I was doing it, even though I might just be the most undateable person that I've ever actually known.

And yeah, it's not something that someone else puts you in, it is nine times out of ten a place that you put yourself in by not making your intentions clear. Though I like to think that even if there is someone I'm attracted to that isn't attracted to me, part of the reason I was that attracted to them is because I enjoyed their company enough to want to be friends with them outside of that. It's not like I consistently find myself attracted to assholes.
 
Every time I see people talk about being in the "friend zone", everyone always saluting or praying for the person that's in it like they the victims. Could be joking, but I really can't tell these days.
 
The friend zone doesn't exist, if a girl or guy likes you then it will happen. If not, it won't. This stupid fiction of the friend zone needs to die.


This is wrong on so many levels i have personal stories of girls saying "im going to fuck this guy tonight (me)" only for me to try to cuddle too long, or took to long to make a sexual advance with.

This isnt like 1 girl by the way this is like 5+ girls who all implied one way or another they were down for sex.... i used to be my own worst enemy.


What happens and people for some reason or another fail to realize is that girls get horny too, and if you fail to capitalize on that , you can blow your chance permanently

Especially at a younger age, your not always going to have that lust/right moment type of deal, and the next day you wake up and realize the heat of the moment is gone.
 


Chris Rock is obviously way more blunt with it, describing all platonic male-female relationships as fuckups on the man's part.

The Friend Zone has[I] always[/I] been this. It's never [I]not[/I] been. "I got FriendZoned" is how a guy explains to themselves that their weird passive-aggressive attempts to get laid didn't work, but weren't ultimately his fault. Something/Someone conspired to keep him from getting laid like he planned, be it the woman herself, other guys being better at being manipulative, anti-male culture, refusal to recognize his innate winning qualities, she's a lesbian, etc. etc.[/QUOTE]

Agreed.

Personally I'm on the Chris Rock train here. Never met a guy that was legit honest friends with a girl unless she was totally unattractive to him.

There are a few exceptions. For example I think (as a guy) you can inadvertently end up friends with your friends' girlfriends, and it stays that way after they break up. Or the unattractive girl situation I mentioned above.

The one guy I know that has a lot of girl friends basically always ends up like "yeah, I'd marry her (or fuck her) if she'd let me, but she doesn't, so we're​ just friends."

To me that isn't real friendship, just a bad situation waiting to happen, and people try to run it that way for a while, but it'll almost always blow up somehow.

Inevitably a one-side friend, other side romantic interest situation either goes badly or ends badly, or the holdout converts and un-friend-zones.

The people insisting it is the red pill dudes bitching about women owing them or whatever are using/defining the term wayyyyy too narrowly.
 
The people insisting it is the red pill dudes bitching about women owing them or whatever are using/defining the term wayyyyy too narrowly.

Nah, it's that, too. That's the Ross shit. It's both. And the two tend to get intertwined.

The common denominator is the guy seeing the woman as a sex object first and a person second (if at all, and then only by default because the primary aim has been shut down).

The whole thing is toxic as shit.
 
Nah, it's that, too. That's the Ross shit. It's both. And the two tend to get intertwined.

The common denominator is the guy seeing the woman as a sex object first and a person second (if at all, and then only by default because the primary aim has been shut down).

The whole thing is toxic as shit.

What?!

That is ridiculous. Friendzoned guys aren't some group of sexist pigs just seeing women as sex objects. They are normal people who either A) realized they liked the person as more than a friend after spending more time with them or B) wasn't confident enough to approach them with their feelings initially so became their friend in order to build the confidence to ask or prove to them they would be a good fit.

The truth is that human interactions are weird and sometimes the friend route works. The funny thing is the advice here on GAF which I agree with is to state your intentions early when meeting a girl your interested in. In MANY of these cases it's purely based on sexual attraction as you haven't got to know the person half the time when you approach them at a bar, club, dating app, etc. That is viewing them as a sexual object significantly more then trying to get in by being friends.

That isn't even addressing the fact that both men and women lead people on in the friendzone giving these people just enough attention to stay and either do things for them or boost their self esteem until the game is finally over when they get the courage to ask them out.
 
What?!

That is ridiculous. Friendzoned guys aren't some group of sexist pigs just seeing women as sex objects. They are normal people who either A) realized they liked the person as more than a friend after spending more time with them or B) wasn't confident enough to approach them with their feelings initially so became their friend in order to build the confidence to ask or prove to them they would be a good fit.

But how can one prove that they are the most liberal on NeoGaf without making a blanket proclamation about the inherently sexist nature of something that has numerous non-sexist reasons?
 
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