AntraxSuicide
Banned
This is like arguing I'm actually not a bad person for pretending to be your friend only to get you to give me money.
If your friendship has a motive, it's not a friendship.
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Let's talk about the friend zone
- Thread starter Fudgepuppy
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This is like arguing I'm actually not a bad person for pretending to be your friend only to get you to give me money.
If your friendship has a motive, it's not a friendship.
I think many of the posters here are arguing about the definition and meaning behind friend zone because they are thinking of different variations of how the friend zone can present. The reality of the situation is that there is a friend spectrum where we have the different variations of the friend zone exist. You can include the variations of the friend zone where it is born of feelings of being owed sex and the variations where it's just unrequited love.
And Bingo was his Name-o!
Why are you assuming the person is pretending? You're buying into the PUA's faulty premise that one cannot be someone's friend and also have feelings for that person. It must be either/or and everyone who claims otherwise must be a liar.
From what I have lived and seen all this talk of "friend zones" is bollocks. However, I do think that people are talking across each other here.
Will someone who believes in a friend zone please offer up what you feel to be a fair and standard definition of what it actually means? Otherwise we can't really have a conversation about it.
Thanks!
Will someone who believes in a friend zone please offer up what you feel to be a fair and standard definition of what it actually means? Otherwise we can't really have a conversation about it.
Thanks!
Bobby Roberts
Banned
It's already happened multiple times in the last three pages alone. Just go back over those conversations.
Because they are. There's an ulterior motive behind their actions. There is artificiality inherent in their behavior. They're acting to some extent. They're acting because they believe if they play this part well enough the woman will be obligated to fuck them.
Antrax isn't "buying into" the PUA premise, they're explaining it. You can be friends with someone, and also have feelings for them. But if you continue to be friends with them in the hopes that eventually those feelings will be reciprocated, then you are, whether you're cognizant of it or not, hoping to leverage the friendship, and the proximity it provides you, into sexual gratification for yourself.
you're pretending to be a better friend than you're actually being in the hopes that pretending will eventually lead to fucking someone.
That's bullshit.
Read the last fucking three pages bruh
AntraxSuicide
Banned
If that person you have feelings for told you that they will never date you, and you're still friends because you accept that and can handle that, then you're friends.
If that person is off the market permanently and suddenly you can't be friends, you were never friends.
I don't agree with this for all cases, for the reasons I and others have already explained that not everyone's motives are a silly oversimplification revolving around underhanded deviousness with the sexist end goal of fucking someone like a throwaway piece of garbage. Also, misguided intentions and inexperience with courtship, relationship initiation, life experience, etc. are not the same as malicious pretending/acting to get someone into bed. Some of you are simplifying the myriad mentalities and walks of life to make it cheap and easy to vilify others.
No. You can't claim this definitively without having met everyone and knowing their relationship dynamics and circumstances.
Alpha Centauri
Member
I consider being friend-zoned to simply mean: A person who is implicitly or explicitly rejected from pursuing a relationship, while staying friends with said person.
You are friend-zoned initially and up until the point you accept you aren't getting with that person.
Once you have accepted it, you are either "just friends" or you cut that person out.
I don't think that form of friend-zone is about patriarchy or ownership. Just a byproduct of the response to rejection. Sometimes you clamor to still be apart of their life hoping for things to change eventually. It's irrational.
With that said... Staying in the friend zone tells me you haven't accepted reality. The best way to get with that person anyway is to distance yourself, make yourself a better person, and if you run in to them in the future, make a move then. You can't hover around, its self-defeating.
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I get the other, more nefarious definition of friend zone dealing with patriarchy, friendship points for sex, and all of that. But in my circle of friends and acquaintances, we use it in a different context. My favorite pizza is Chicago deep-dish. Most people wouldn't even call it a pizza. /shrug
Bobby Roberts
Banned
Just use the hashtag, dude.
#BobbyIsWrongAgainButInsistsHisWayMustBeTheRightWay
???
After this part,
I think it's weird you're limiting this to: things bad sexist men do to defenseless women. Few pages earlier I offered an example where it was a woman interested in me and the whole friendzone scenario that ensued. But whatever, not all men, right? Happy you reduced this to your narrow simplistic definition?
Bobby Roberts
Banned
That's the one.
VincentMatts
Member
Friend zones only exist if the girl was never interested to begin with. If a girl is interested, youll always have a chance.
Airola
Member
So if you want a relationship, it means you are in hopes to get laid?
Isn't it possible that the first thing a person who'd like to have a girlfriend or a boyfriend is not that they'd be able to fuck someone?
This is a nasty way to reduce people's romantic desires into sexism.
Depends on what you mean by friend zone. If you're friends with someone and in the course of that friendship develope romantic feelings for them but never make a move on it for whatever reason (fear of getting rejected, fear of ruining a good friendship) I wouldn't say that would qualify for the popular meaning of the term "friend zone" that has negative connotations. That is everyday life and happens all the fucking time and there is nothing wrong in it.
If you desire a person romantically and become his/her friend in order to get closer to him/her to deepen your relationship in hopes it would escalate into a romantic/sexual one, but fail at it, then I'd call that a friend zone. It's also the more dishonest course of action of the two I have mentioned. There is nothing inherently wrong in trying to get to know someone you desire but it becomes problematic when you start getting frustrated at not having your feelings reciprocated and think you "deserve it" because of all these things and favours you've done for him/her.
If you desire a person romantically and become his/her friend in order to get closer to him/her to deepen your relationship in hopes it would escalate into a romantic/sexual one, but fail at it, then I'd call that a friend zone. It's also the more dishonest course of action of the two I have mentioned. There is nothing inherently wrong in trying to get to know someone you desire but it becomes problematic when you start getting frustrated at not having your feelings reciprocated and think you "deserve it" because of all these things and favours you've done for him/her.
Bobby Roberts
Banned
This is typically one of the bigger parts of a relationship, yes. The fucking parts. Most relationships, especially early on, tend to highlight the fucking as one of the key aspects.
TickleMeElbow
Member
What if she isn't into you, but then you leave the country and go on an epic journey of self discovery where you're trained by mystical monks in the Himalayas and find a bunch of lost treasure in Bhutan? Then you come back all ripped, cultured, and rich, and she's into you.
LOL
Yes. It's a cheap, easy, dumb and convenient way of making broad sweeping generalizations and reducing people into villainy caricatures for the purpose of espousing self-gratifying advice about mostly imaginary boogeymen with the equally imaginary sole intent of trying to get into the pants of a clueless person at the other end. Because this is how everyone thinks and operates, and a sincere but misguided person can't just be a sincere but misguided person... yup.
God Dayumm
Banned
Yes, but it that case you were not in the friend zone, you were in the Himalayas
Stop getting hung up on words like "laid" and actually try reading and understanding the context of Bobby Roberts' post and his overall point. Actually let me just fix the post for you two:
Better?
Airola
Member
Sure, there's that. But is that the thing people are firstmost looking for when they get in relationships? Or does that happen as a reaction to the more important part of getting a partner to live with?
Besides if you think that is something everyone is looking for anyways, isn't every single thing you do to get a relationship something you do in hopes to get laid? Doesn't that make all aspects of people looking for a relationship a sexist search for someone to fuck? If so, doesn't that make "trying to be a friend to get laid" no more or less bad and sexist than any other way to do that?
And if there are some ways to look for a partner without being in a sexist search for a fuck, couldn't being friends with a man/woman be one?
dripdripsplash
Member
Okay i need some tips.
Invites this cute girl out who was working at a book shop I was randomly visiting. She was flirting a bit and she looked cute so I asked her out and She said yes and we're really knocking it off, we have good conversation, she's funny, cute, everything.
But I usually don't date, most of the girls I've been with has been someone I already know, gotten drunk with and then had sex, then continued a relationship from there.
This is my first "inviting some stranger out" thing I've done. We went to our first date and she was adamant on a second and planned a third too. We went to the second, awesome thing too. But I'm just having this dumb though of when there is "supposed" to happen something. Like a kiss or sex. Its stupid because of course there isn't a set rule but I guess I just wanted people's commments on it. She clearly wants to hang, so that's that.
Edit: I think I should have just posted this in the dating ot lol
Invites this cute girl out who was working at a book shop I was randomly visiting. She was flirting a bit and she looked cute so I asked her out and She said yes and we're really knocking it off, we have good conversation, she's funny, cute, everything.
But I usually don't date, most of the girls I've been with has been someone I already know, gotten drunk with and then had sex, then continued a relationship from there.
This is my first "inviting some stranger out" thing I've done. We went to our first date and she was adamant on a second and planned a third too. We went to the second, awesome thing too. But I'm just having this dumb though of when there is "supposed" to happen something. Like a kiss or sex. Its stupid because of course there isn't a set rule but I guess I just wanted people's commments on it. She clearly wants to hang, so that's that.
Edit: I think I should have just posted this in the dating ot lol
TickleMeElbow
Member
Yeah but what if you're still communicating as friends the entire time? They have WiFi and shit in the Himalayas bro I saw it in Doctor Strange.
What some posters are referring to is "Nice Guy syndrome," which is related to the friendzone, but they're two different things. Nice Guy Syndrome is the problem where men expect treating women with respect to be rewarded with a relationship/sex. Friendzoning is when you're hanging out with someone a lot and don't want to make a move (for whatever reason), and get frustrated when they end up getting together with somebody else because you're a friend to them and not a romantic target. People attempting a Nice Guy ploy will claim that they got friendzoned when instead they just failed.
The part where it gets specious is the question of whether friendzoning is actually a thing on the woman's part, or merely a delusion of the man. The best description i've ever read about attraction is that you start with a certain number of points from your first impression towards a potential romantic partner. Losing points is easy, gaining points is insanely hard, so unless they were somewhat into you from the start, then they probably never will be.
Although your circumstances may vary, like this one nice girl i know, who was engaged and well on her way to marriage when i met her, then the engagement fell through last summer. Now i'm hanging out with her on Friday, possibly exclusively if none of the other folks in our social group show up.
In her case, i'm choosing not to make a move because i don't want to dick up the friendship with awkwardness since she's probably not into me, but it's one case where the option changed since she broke off her engagement after me knowing her for a few years.
The part where it gets specious is the question of whether friendzoning is actually a thing on the woman's part, or merely a delusion of the man. The best description i've ever read about attraction is that you start with a certain number of points from your first impression towards a potential romantic partner. Losing points is easy, gaining points is insanely hard, so unless they were somewhat into you from the start, then they probably never will be.
Although your circumstances may vary, like this one nice girl i know, who was engaged and well on her way to marriage when i met her, then the engagement fell through last summer. Now i'm hanging out with her on Friday, possibly exclusively if none of the other folks in our social group show up.
In her case, i'm choosing not to make a move because i don't want to dick up the friendship with awkwardness since she's probably not into me, but it's one case where the option changed since she broke off her engagement after me knowing her for a few years.
No, not better -- because my post you quoted and this post both still apply:
If you think every infatuated dummy on earth is a redpill/pua Redditor, that's on you. No one is obliged to agree with such nonsense.
Bobby Roberts
Banned
#NotAllMen
We get it.
Your existence outside of the norm doesn't mean the norm is false, Mega. You don't have to invent boogeyment and dismiss 20+ years of observable toxic behavior to explain how you managed to occupy your specific niche in this world. You don't. You can recognize yourself and your experiences as an exception to the norms being discussed and generally recognized without trying to explain the entire phenomenon as "villainy caricatures."
I'm not "self-gratified" by discussing this shit. It doesn't make my dick hard to explain to another person that a large aspect of relationships involves having sex. That's not a thing that makes my pulse quicken, the opportunity to explain obvious, easily observed phenomena to people looking for a means to explain that reality away, or to morph and reshape it for their own comfort.
There is likely a venn diagram between "Guys who are talking about the FriendZone" and "Guys who have practiced this sort of sexist bullshit in their own lives" that pretty much looks like a full moon. I am not outside that bubble, by the way. My life experience includes those mistakes, those misguided views. And it's not a case of "well I've done it, so of course everyone else has to have done it too," but more like "I've done it, and recognized it, and that recognition makes it a lot easier to spot."
Which is why people trying to redefine what it means so it doesn't sound so bad, or people trying to pretend this selfish, manipulative, responsibility-shirking phenomena doesn't really exist, or couldn't possibly apply to them, is a thing I'm speaking directly to.
There's an instinct people have to respond to learning they've indulged in negative behaviors, which is to redraw the lines on those behaviors so either they're no longer negative, or that they stand outside of them.
That's a lot of why this thread is as long as it is, and confused as it is.
But as has been said - it's not even remotely that complicated.
Like that.
I took out the "getting into pants" parts. *shrug*
Anyway, all he and AntraxSuicide are saying is if you're in a "friendship" with someone and you have an ulterior motive other than "friendship" (ex: a relationship, getting laid, Trump's Tax returns), and the only reason you're in this "friendship" is that you're waiting for a chance to obtain this ulterior motive, then it's not a genuine friendship. Not sure what's so hard to understand here or why you're trying to create all these other scenarios for this to be acceptable behavior.
Nope.
The friendzone is universal against all gender and sexual orientation groups, including those without women. It just means you don't reciprocate somebody's sexual attraction, but don't dislike them enough to shut them down too strongly.
I'm not saying that behavior is acceptable. I'm saying some of the folks who can be described as "friendzoned" (or see themselves that way) weren't at all engaging in the behavior you described. Some of us see it as a broader term where it's not just about scumbags fake-friending their objects of infatuation for the sole purpose of gaining something for themselves. People are a complicated bundle of emotions, not just tools of sexism (and greedy opportunity).
Were you the one who paid for the dates? if so, you should physically escalate (touching her) on the third date and see how she responds. If she responds favorably, invite her over to your place to have sex. If she doesn't respond favorably, then she is not interested in having sex with you and you should just end it.
dripdripsplash
Member
I paid first date, she paid second.
But dude sorry
😂😂😂 that's the worst advice I've heard in my life, "if she responds favorably" Jesus
Fudgepuppy
Banned
Go to a bar that closes early, be surprised when they do, suggest you go home to your place and watch a movie, put your arm around her, if she leans in, go for a kiss.
Works every time for me.
AntraxSuicide
Banned
Yeah, Mega is getting hung up on sex as the reward, but that's not the point. The point is that friendship isn't predicated on getting a reward. If you expect to get a relationship, sex, etc... out of your friendship because of your friendship (to say this another way, if you are frustrated with your friendship because it isn't getting you a reward), then you're not a friend.
And yes, I will state this regardless of whether I've met every human ever. Friendship isn't conditional like that. If your friend tells you "I am not interested in X" and you can't handle that like an adult (either accept it and stay friends or don't stay friends because it's hard, either is fine) and so you pretend to be a friend in the hopes that they'll eventually give you what you want:
You. Are. Not. A. Friend.
BlueTsunami
there is joy in sucking dick
60% of the time, it works every time
Airola
Member
Yes, that is always bad no matter what the ulterior motive is. It could be money. It could be sex. It could be a car. It could be just to show others that you have this friend. It could be political gain. It could be anything.
(EDIT: Although it also depends on the ulterior motive. What if someone wants to be friends expecting that friend to be a "cure" to soul crushing loneliness. That's an ulterior motive too.)
But the question here is whether "friendzoning's" absolute definition is that people are expecting sex and are being "fake friends" because of that.
I argue it doesn't automatically mean you are trying to get laid and it doesn't mean you are not genuinely friends even if you wished you were more than friends.
To some it's about that, to some it isn't.
It feels like people who are opposed to the idea of a "friend zone" existing or saying it's always a sexist "nice guy syndrome" thing are actually more vocal about the sex part of it than those who claim to have been friendzoned are.
AntraxSuicide
Banned
Right, it's not about sex in every case (just a lot of them). It's the idea that you're friends with someone with a motive. That's not okay.
entremet
Member
This is false because all friendships do have some mutual benefit, otherwise why be friends with a person?
You enjoy their company.
What you mean is ulterior motives. But many times feelings develop and if they're unrequited you have a bad situation. The intent wasn't an owed romance or sex. This happened to me both ways. It feels awful rejecting someone who developed feelings for you and see as a friend. But the person wasn't holding out for a relationship.
That's where Mega is going. It's not this binary thing. Human relationships are complex things.
Does it mean that people don't have ulterior motives? Of course not, but many of you are painting broad brushes.
It's almost as the partisanship of politics has affected discussing super complex things like intersex relationships.
It's either/or.
For/against.
Well you want to fuck her right? You need to communicate that physically. Otherwise, you'll end up on a message board asking for advice instead of just fucking her like you should be doing.
biggersmaller
Banned
I was friends with my wife for years before we ever got together. She even hooked me up with her best friend at one point.
Though the term didn't exist back then, I was also friend zoned and I've also friend zoned others in college. Meaning, I knew someone "liked" me and at times I flirted with them knowing I would never date them in a million years.
It is a little wrong, but if I would've been asked out/asked them out - it would've cleared things up real quick.
Though the term didn't exist back then, I was also friend zoned and I've also friend zoned others in college. Meaning, I knew someone "liked" me and at times I flirted with them knowing I would never date them in a million years.
It is a little wrong, but if I would've been asked out/asked them out - it would've cleared things up real quick.
Yes, thank you. No one is condoning shitbags being shitbags... merely stating not everyone is such a person acting or intending to act in that way. This is not a reach. It's the truth.
I'm really tried of Internet arguments that try to reduce complex behaviors and intertwined motives into neat little packages bordering on humorless memes (pashmilla's terrible post on the first page) and as a drive by, slamdunk, drop the mic and walk away sort of post. it's bullshit. Maybe get to meet more people and understand them, before you insist everyone must be this one thing that so conveniently conforms to your basic take on a wide swath of human behaviors.
HammerFace
Banned
That's literally what he is saying. He was agreeing to a post that was saying unless your friendship is based around just being friends(no other ulterior motives) you're not actually friends. You're using that person until that motive is satisfied
dripdripsplash
Member
😂😂😂 dude don't be salty.
The thing is I don't want her just for the casual sex, she seems like gf-material and I guess what I found out after getting comments from someone else in the dating thread is that I'm just worrying about not knowing what she feels about me. I think I'm going for a conversation in that direction next date.
Still thanks for answering tho
blame space
Banned
i know this girl, we hang out sometimes.. we really click.. one day i ask her if she wants to be exclusive.. she says she just didn't have the time because she's a space reporter 500 years in the future. now she never calls me.
i got put in the project x zone. 😒
i got put in the project x zone. 😒
JinjoUnchained
Member
I think there is such thing as a "friend zone", but the concept is misappropriated by selfish, sexist hipsters who get mad when they can't get laid.
Like others have pointed out, it's not a "friend zone" if you don't express your feelings to someone who doesn't like you back.
But there are emotionally manipulative "friends" who lead people on if they think they can get something in return. Who here in this thread has helped someone they liked with their homework or provided emotional support for their long rants, when that person was deliberately pretending like they might like you?
I'm not ashamed to admit that I fell for that a few times when I was young, naive, and desperate. That specific scenario is what I think of as the "friend zone", you may call it something else. You gotta have enough common sense and self respect not to stay in that "friend zone" or w/e you call it.
Like others have pointed out, it's not a "friend zone" if you don't express your feelings to someone who doesn't like you back.
But there are emotionally manipulative "friends" who lead people on if they think they can get something in return. Who here in this thread has helped someone they liked with their homework or provided emotional support for their long rants, when that person was deliberately pretending like they might like you?
I'm not ashamed to admit that I fell for that a few times when I was young, naive, and desperate. That specific scenario is what I think of as the "friend zone", you may call it something else. You gotta have enough common sense and self respect not to stay in that "friend zone" or w/e you call it.
In the way many people talk about the friend zone, it certainly has sexist and objectifying connotations in that context... I.e. "Geez I've been nice to this girl for weeks and she won't put out"
There are however situations where people (largely unknowingly) unhealthily spread their relationship requirements across several relationships (one physical and one emotional/nurturing) and there is often a certain degree of sexual "leading on" imposed involved in the latter to sustain it. It's certainly not specific to one gender. It definitely swings both ways. Maybe calling this dynamic something other than "the friend zone" would be better due to other ways the term is used.
There are however situations where people (largely unknowingly) unhealthily spread their relationship requirements across several relationships (one physical and one emotional/nurturing) and there is often a certain degree of sexual "leading on" imposed involved in the latter to sustain it. It's certainly not specific to one gender. It definitely swings both ways. Maybe calling this dynamic something other than "the friend zone" would be better due to other ways the term is used.
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