Hey, Chicago readers: If you can make it up to Evanston this Monday, I’ll be giving a talk titled “Escape from the Planet of the Friend Zone,” exploring some of the mythology of this dreaded place. The talk, like my talk two years ago, will be part of Northwestern’s Annual Sex Week, sponsored by the College Feminists. (The talk itself is cosponsored by NU’s Men Against Rape and Sexual Assault.)
It’s at 7 PM in Kresge Hall 4365, which is on the Southern end of campus, near “the rock.” (Here’s a map.) If you’re taking the el, get off at the Foster stop and head east; then a little ways south when you hit campus. I’ll check about parking for non-students and provide details later.
The last time I gave a talk during Northwestern’s Sex Week, some MRAs got a little overexcited and started making up things about what they assumed my talk was about. (They were wrong.) So, just to make clear: I will not be teaching impressionable college students “how to have good sex,” except insofar as I will be talking about how sexist and self-defeating the concept of the Friend Zone is, which means it’s possible that some dude could attend the lecture and decide to stop whining about getting stuck in the Friend Zone, and thus improve his romantic and sexual prospects with that one simple step.
I haven’t finished writing the talk yet, so if any of you have any thoughts on the Friend Zone — or the closely related topic of the “nice guy” — let me know in the comments below.
I’m also curious about what role the concept of the Friend Zone plays in your everyday lives, so I’m going to spit out a bunch of questions that I may address in the talk and may ask the students as well. I’d be interested in your answers.
Have you ever been put in a situation that you or other people might describe as the Friend Zone? Whose fault do you think it was? Have you ever been accused of putting someone else in the Friend Zone? Did you find this insulting? Has someone else, through their own obsequiousness, put themselves in the Friend Zone with you?
Is the Friend Zone a male thing or are there a significant number of women and girls who find themselves friendzoned as well?
Does the notion of the Friend Zone grow out of male entitlement? Is it a fundamentally manipulative to try to pressure a woman into romance and sex? Or does it grow out of male awkwardness — the inherently difficult situation of shy or perhaps socially awkward guys who are still nonetheless expected to be the ones who pursue women rather than the other way around, as MRA types might argue?
When did the term start getting used? The concept is certainly not new, but I don’t think the term is that old. When did you all first start hearing it?
How can guys (or gals) get out of the Friend Zone?
Can a Friend Zone situation — by which I mean one in which one person is romantically interested and the other isn’t — be transformed into a real friendship, or will the different feelings/expectations of the two people make this impossible?
Alternately, can a Friend Zone situation turn into a real romance?
Is the Friend Zone really a useful concept at all? There are very few relationships — platonic, romantic or purely sexual — in which each partner feels the exact same way about the other. There are mismatches all the time. Shouldn’t we just learn to roll with it? Maybe the answer to the old When Harry Met Sally question — can a man be friends with a woman he’s attracted to? — is, “why the hell not?”
The sad thing is that you could make a “in communist Russia, man friendzones woman” joke and these guys would be like “yes! that is a hilarious joke because it’s so unlikely! man bites dog indeed”.
No, but despite popular opinion, they did use “microclimate.”
More:
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Thank you! If only trolls were as easy to get rid of.
I read Whothehell Cares’ comment as saying that the backlash against feminism has caused men to seek ways to frame themselves as the oppressed gender, leading to a proliferation of ridiculous new terms like “friendzoned”. But perhaps I’m being too charitable.
As for the OP: David, break a leg, and I hope you get some entertaining protesters.
I think I should also mention that just ONCE I heard a woman in college say that she friendzoned a guy as if it was something she intentionally and consciously did and seemed to be proud of herself for it. I did not hear the context.
This was just one incident in which I do not have many details, but I sure hope the trolls don’t see this as “see? Here’s a Manboobz commenter who agrees with us!”
By that same logic, the minority rights movements created “reverse racism”.
I also have experience “friend-zoning” someone. In my first trans women’s support group, a trans girl told me she thought I was cute, and eventually she wanted to date me. I didn’t reciprocate her feelings, and I knew that dating wasn’t something I could do while still living at my dad’s place (he would find out very easily), so I texted her “I think you’re nice, and I’d love to be your friend, but I can’t date anyone at this time. I’m sorry.” But she kept calling me without end asking me out, and eventually I stopped responding to her calls and texts because I felt that she didn’t respect my boundaries.
Ally, that’s not “friend-zoning”, though. That’s being decent and honest about your relationship potential and then being firm about your boundaries. Well done, you.
So does anyone believe that NewJim has two female friends? Well, giving him the benefit of the doubt and assuming that he genuinely knows two women:
I’m willing to bet that the two women don’t say that they “string guys along as friends”. I expect that what they actually say is that they have male friends who they know would like to date them but who they don’t wish to date but keep as friends.
Because that happens. And sometimes friends don’t talk about the fact that one of them wants to date and the other doesn’t, for lots of reasons that don’t involve stringing along. Such as in the hope that the wish to date will go, to avoid awkwardness & embarrassment, and in an attempt to maintain a valued friendship which might be ruined if things are acknowledged explicitly.
And this is you, NewJim, assuming some pretty selfish motivations on the part of the women. You don’t know why the women are maintaining friendships with men who would like to date them so you assume it is materialistic and shallow. Do your female friends know what you really think of them?
Again, you assume you know why the women are doing what they are doing. You assume that they feel guilty and that the guilt is about using the men for, sorry, what, exactly?
And what are these benefits of “early traditional courtship and pursuit” exactly? ‘cos you’ve said they’re not dating so we’re not talking dinner and a movie. And we’re not in a Marilyn Monroe movie where suitors offer diamonds. So what are these benefits? Enquiring minds need to know.
Bullshit. See above.
@Skye
Isn’t it partly the American central myth that says: “work hard and you can achieve anything you want” ? In a sense it’s very egocentric, since if you apply it to relationships you get: “do all these wonderful things and you will be rewarded” — and it sort of denies her agency to make up her own mind and it’s more like what an earlier post described as a medieval approach to relationships.
@titianblue, why do you think you know better what NewJim’s friends think than NewJim does? I knew reading that post that people would jump on it and try to discredit it, but I don’t know why, it seems a harmless enough statement: “I know some women that have done X bad thing”.
Problems with the ‘friend zone’:
It’s a term coined for a sitcom to create the illusion of an obstacle for two characters getting together in a romantic sense, with rules outlined by a third character. It was referenced in another sitcom later for a similar situation. The rule was broken in both cases. So it’s a bit bizarre that this fictional thing to create tension that wasn’t even true in a fictional world is suddenly in the dictionary in reality. Two fictionals make a reality?
It upholds the cultural BS where a woman’s sexuality is supposed to be determined by morality, whereas a man’s sexuality is biological fact. If a woman ‘friend zones’ someone nice to her, then it’s considered normal to talk about how she’s doing the ‘wrong’ thing, be it dating assholes, not giving a chance, or stringing someone along. If a man ‘friend zones’ someone, then his sexuality comes into question. If a woman is ‘friend zoned’, then it shifts to any numerous slurs used to shame women for existing and not giving boners. If a man is ‘friend zoned’, then it goes into a discussion about how men should be rewarded for being nice with sex. Whatever the discussion, it rarely ends well, unless ‘friend zone’ is immediately followed by an explanation that better explains the situation than ‘friend zone.’
It also creates victimhood where there is none and shifts responsibility. There are better words. ‘Friendship’ for those who can actually be good friends, where someone has their attraction under control. If someone is stringing someone else along, past a certain point it’s called ‘being gullible’ or ‘trying to buy love’. Which happens to a lot of people at some point or other, and there’s no shame, but the person being strung along is responsible for freeing themselves and examining their assumptions and expectations, at the very least in the name of self-respect.
And it’s a form of rejection, and unfortunately rejection has been getting a bad rap. Rejection is largely judgment free as it’s more about compatibility and what a particular person wants at that point in time, and situations where nothing happens are neutral, not bad. For me, it’s very closely tied into the idea of consent, where the current culture still seems to think wearing down a ‘no’ until it becomes a ‘yes’ is acceptable courtship.
Friend zone is just a way defining a relational space if you will. So it acts as a group of constants by which one person may communicate to another person the state of a relationship. The important factor in this definition is the one which implies unequal feelings. If both parties were equally invested it would be called something else…friends, lovers, friends with benifits etc…the assumption among men seems to be that the friendzone is a shameful place for a man to be…and it opens him to ridicule. In a sense it is viewed as a failure to function as a man. This is not always the case but it can be the case. And the fact is there is always a way to get out of the friend zone wheather one is male or female…the difference for men is the type of brain they face in women…it functions on primal evolutionary emperatives like any other brain…but it has a very large prefrontal cortex which can consciously read a few basic threads of your being while carrying on social interaction. Like every brain it has buttons one can push to achieve the desired results…in order to get out of the friend zone truly a man espicially cannot use guilt…all cues both physical and mental must be manifest…in other words you need to become attractive by functioning as a man. But here’s the most important point…this is a place you created. If you are miserable in the friendzone…then you are really only following her for the sex and she will sense this and reject you…remember that sex is high risk for women…they make a mistake they have a kid…you make a mistake…well…you don’t have a kid. Therefor a women will pick a mate that will stick by her…and thanks to her prefrontal cortex she will see through the bs…you don’t deserve her…if you can fake it long enough to close…then you still don’t deserve her but at least you got laid…the best thing you can do is be upfront or leave. The man is touch the Wang then the mind…the way the female works is touch the brain then the…you know how it works. To answer the question what do women get out of this? The answer is social power which is more heavily ingrained into their being then it is into men’s…think about a world of zero tech…a women can’t defend herself from Neanderthal man…but a group suitors can…the ideal mate, however, would be someone she can’t control…think about the implications in an ancient world. Most of our genes haven’t caught up with the present yet. The friend zone isn’t about making women more open it’s about communicating a state of existance with an aspect of unbalanced feelings between two parties. Also…the tricks won’t work on everyone…just the ones more evolutionarily primed to be taken in by certain behaviors.
I don’t think I know better than NewJim what NewJim’s friends think. I think that NewJim is not posting in good faith. Did you read his first comment?
Among the reasons people want to jump all over NewJim’s post?
1. “Bad thing” – it is extremely unclear from NewJim’s post that the thing that is supposedly “bad” thing actually is a bad thing. He has assigned some strange motivations, assumed what his female friends might be thinking and not given any clear basis for us to agree that these female friends are acting badly. As I pointed out how all their behaviours have equally innocent interpretations to his guilty ones.
2. NewJim has cloaked his example in some pretty misogynistic and blaming language – women “string along” men.
3. NewJim has generalised (in his first post) “I know some women who have done X bad thing” to “All women do X bad thing”.
I believe that women can be jerks just as men can be jerks. I think NewJim is a jerk.
In pure theory, Friend zoning is just a modern, non-gendered word for unrequited love, And in theory is useful for describing such in a none-hostile and ‘hip’ slang sort of way.
In practice? yeah, its a gendered way of blaming women for not giving men the sex.(usually. Exceptions occur, and many use it in its theoretical capacity, which is nice.) As I have mentioned before, I was shamed and guilted into a long and toxic relationship because I had a Tendency to flirt at receptive people. (Im still not interested in serous ‘romantic’ relationships, and I doubt I ever will be.) So, trust me when I say I have strong dislike for the term.
If I had to guess at the origin of the Entitled attitude, It probably rooted in two things.. raw entitlement, and a misunderstanding of attraction. Not only does it scream “but you *owe* me a chance because I act nice to you!” it also assumes that attraction is somehow universal, either consciously, or otherwise, and that it Should be dolled out based on raw virtue.
Plus, a lot of the guys who use this term manage to see the flaws in all romantic rivals, but not themselves, “hilariously” creating situations where either party would think themselves the ‘friendzones nice guy’ if they are not ‘picked’ (ive had that happen once. where I gave two guys ‘chances’ out of guilt, and they seperately admitted later to feeling so ‘friendzoned’ whenever it wasn’t them.)
I do still hold hope that the term can be a useful and informative phrase, but it seems less and less likely the more I see it used to just mean ‘woman are too picky! sad boner!”
Some tips for you simon
1) talking about “the way female brains work” and ” the way male brains work” isn’t going to fly here
2) an ellipsis does not serve the same function as a paragraph break
misery: if you think that NewJim is really the kind of dude his female friends confide in, OK. I’m getting a “cool story bro” vibe off his posts.
Cases? This isn’t an episode of Law & Order. Nor is it a thing that happens with the regularity you think it does. The plural of anecdote is not data.
I was “put in the friend zone” by my now best friend a year and a half ago. Who cares? It’s not his responsibility that I have feelings for him, he’s not obliged to feel anything he really doesn’t not to “hurt my feelings”. We’re best friends, I still love him to pieces, but I don’t whine about it. I don’t tell him that it sucks to luuuuuuve him while he’s not interested, I don’t ask him every so often if I really, really don’t have a chance, I don’t secretly hope that if I stick around and be an awesome friend long enough, he’ll eventually marry me, I don’t question him about WHY he doesn’t like me “that way”. Why would he have to answer for that? I’m not entitled to his love or interest or attention. If someone doesn’t view you as relationship material (or simply fucking material), you move the fuck on already.
It’s entirely selfish not to. This ridiculous notion of people that because they’re so nice and good and kind to someone and help them out so much and love them to bits, they’re DESERVING of something in return is enormously self-centered. How on earth can you pretend to love someone and then get frustrated at them for their feelings and decisions in stead of respecting those, like you would do if you really loved a person enough not to be an egotistical prick.
I’m answering a handful of the questions posed, so I’m afraid this turned out a bit long. :S
Different folks on the internet have touted one of the following as THE definition of the Friend Zone: 1) Neutral unrequited love which can happen to anybody; 2) Unrequited love, but it only happens to guys, since “reasonably attractive” women can somehow magically bed any dude they like; 3) Unrequited love that only happens to guys, because women think that men and women can just be friends, but of course “all guys” know that’s not true; 4) Unrequited love that only happens to Nice Guys, because women only date jerks and therefore relegate all Nice Guys to “just friends”; 5) Conniving women who use a man’s hormones to wring dinners, drinks, and presents out of him.
In other words, “Friend Zone” has too many definitions to be helpful in regular discussion. It’s much better to just call things what they are. Is it a simple one-way crush? Is it emotional manipulation? Is the other person is already in a relationship with someone else (whom you happen to not like)? What is ACTUALLY happening, besides “boohoo we are not dating”? Call it that.
Aside from being dreadfully unclear, most of the “Friend Zone” definitions assume cruelty or naivete on the part of the woman in a heterosexual pairing. It’s not *strictly* gendered in its use, but in my experience, it is *mostly* gendered and misogynistic. At this point, I find it hard to imagine redeeming the term. It generally comes across as an immature unwillingness to accept the fact that most people do not want to bang most of their acquaintances, which includes you.
It’s not wrong to crush on someone who doesn’t reciprocate. It’s not wrong to be really, really sad and/or hurt that they don’t reciprocate. It’s not wrong to decide that you can’t continue to be friends with them while you are sad and/or hurt. But it’s super wrong to whine about how mean and stupid they are for not wanting to bang you.
Most of my big crushes have been unrequited. The only one that felt like a “Zone” was when my crush/friend asked me who I thought he should date, which seemed like pretty clear code for “I don’t see you that way.” Everyone else I’ve been interested in simply started dating someone else. While I was sad about all of the above, I wasn’t bitter towards them, and I’m still friends with all of them (and their wives/girlfriends), because they are all genuinely good people whom I like without the assistance of hormones.
People who start with a one-way crush can become romantically involved with each other. People who start with a one-way crush can become just friends. Of course that’s not true of every situation, but I’m friends with people I’ve formerly crushed on, as well as with people who have formerly crushed on me.
Life is complicated. You don’t actually want to date most of the people you meet. Most of the people you meet do not want to date you. It’s kind of miraculous any time two adult individuals end up liking each other in the same way at the same time and it leads to something romantic. Rejoice in that part and learn to roll with the punches for the rest.
I like elipses…first of all…they are fun. No need to be stingy. And they have some nice spacing effects. I’m on my phone and paragraph breaks don’t always go as intended. Second of all, what’s wrong with stating what science has to say. Louann Brizendine, for exmple has a lot to say on these topics. She has quite an impressive education too…probably more impressive than most of ours. Oops, dang it, pesky little things…so addictive. I would use citations and correct grammar/form but this is only an online forum.
*blog thing. I meant to say blog thing. Or maybe I meant to say article factory. Please don’t kill me!
Here is a point to ponder: why does every generation think its the first to encounter an issue? Look back to 1929 when a song called “Can’t We Be Friends” was first recorded. It’s about the friend-zone. This isn’t new. What’s more, the song was written by both a woman and a man composer Kay Swift and her lyricist husband Paul James, so it’s not like one sex had a monopoly on this concept. The most famous reading of the song is probably Frank Sinatra’s 1955 version from his “In the Wee Small Hours” album, so this idea was brought into millions of homes before virtually all of us were born.
@titanblue, @ hellkell. It is fine if you think I am being disingenuous. It is also fine if people believe that these are isolated incidents. We can all speculate as to the regularity with which they occur. No one is using data here. I am reporting once specific type of incident that I have observed with some regularity and contributing it to the problem space. If you assume I am lying I hope you are correct, because it is your model of the world that will be inaccurate for it.
Other “friendzone” things also happen, but I do not understand why everyone is so resistant to this.
I also am not sure why everyone is so quick to assume I have no female friends. The people I am friends with are honest enough with themselves and self aware enough to know what is going and an accurately describe what they are doing with some sense of responsibility. They know they did this and they know they play these guys.
If males commit the counterpart of this, then they are dicks as well.
I assure you that the women themselves were aware of what they were doing and felt guilty. I did not assign any motivations or feelings. They judged themselves and their behaviour the way I outlined.
I just found this site and I am impressed at people’s unwillingness to accept that this is true.
All the best.