I’m too lazy to write a real post today, so I thought I’d point you all to a pretty decent analysis of the dreaded “friend zone” by Foz Meadows on goodreads.
Here she is addressing the “Nice Guys” of the world:
[S]omewhere along the line, you’ve got it into your head that if you’re romantically interested in a girl who sees you only as a friend, her failure to reciprocate your feelings is just that: a failing. That because you’re nice and treat her well, she therefore owes you at least one opportunity to present yourself as a viable sexual candidate, even if she’s already made it clear that this isn’t what she wants. That because she legitimately enjoys a friendship that you find painful (and which you’re under no obligation to continue), she is using you. That if a man wants more than friendship with a woman, then the friendship itself doesn’t even attain the status of a consolation prize, but is instead viewed as hell: a punishment to be endured because, so long as he thinks she owes him that golden opportunity, he is bound to persist in an association that hurts him – not because he cares about the friendship, but because he feels he’s invested too much kindness not to stick around for the (surely inevitable, albeit delayed) payoff.
Seriously, Nice Guys, if you think of your friendship with a woman as a means to an end, or some kind of purgatory, then it’s not really a friendship, and you’re doing both yourself and your crush a disservice by persisting in it. (I learned this lesson myself the hard way, a long time before there were helpful internet posts explaining to me why Nice Guying was a recipe for crappiness all around.)
Speaking of learning: I also learned from Foz Meadows’ post that there is a Wikipedia entry for “friend zone,” complete with advice on how dudes can avoid getting “friendzoned” in the first place.
Several advisers urged men, during the initial dates, to touch women physically in appropriate places such as elbows or shoulders as a means of increasing the sexual tension. … Adviser Ali Binazir agrees, and suggested for the man to be a “little bit dangerous”, not in a violent sense, but “with a bit of an edge to them”, and be unpredictable and feel “comfortable in their skin as sexual beings.”
Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia … for Your Penis*.
Also: Here is the official Friend Zone anthem, “Consolation Prize” by Orange Juice. Lyrics here.
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* Hetero cis penis only.
Pretty much, yeah, and not just romantic or sexytimes ones (though not really “as much as you both want” so much as “things that you both like”)
wtf does that even mean? Also, “I found that out by myself, no internetz.” see above about women being unique, meaning yep, best bet is to ask the woman in question.
Oh and monogamy is optional btw, there are other options, though respecting all your sex partners is still required (does get around differing sex drives however)
“Well, I’ve only got my sex drive to go by. And I love sex, I’d never turn it down.”
Consider that if your experience (like many women’s) had been one in which you were constantly propositioned for sex by people who you weren’t at all interested in, and expected to give it as a sort of reward for good behavior, your feelings might be very different, and you might be far more inclined to turn it down. I mean really, for me the fending off of sexual propositions that I had in no way indicated were welcome started when I was 9 years old, and was a regular thing from adult men by the time I was 12.
It’s not that women don’t like sex, it’s that our life experience is often one in which the people asking us for sex don’t give a damn whether or not we actually want it. Now imagine that, from that perspective, your but if I plan a night out and sex does not result that makes me feel pissed off scenario.
You already know this stuff, really. It’s just a matter of adjusting your internal attitude to reflect your girlfriend’s reality.
“wtf does that even mean? Also, “I found that out by myself, no internetz.” see above about women being unique, meaning yep, best bet is to ask the woman in question.”
Well, my dear old thrice divorced dad, may have been implying that beyond their reproductive capacities, women aren’t worth much. ( I don’t agree, and whilst I laughed at him for being so sexist and backward, I was also miffed I didn’t get real advice).
Do you think a lot of man/women hating stems from percieved differences, and lack of understanding about real ones? I feel like educational courses for men and women, are in order to dispel all the crap we grow up with.
Okay John, you asked for relationship advice from your thrice divirced Dad? I’m sure he’s a good man, but did it not occur to you that he may not be the best person to ask?
Thhere are books on relationships that are decent, but there’s a lot of crappy advice out there. So what can you do? You can consult yourself for what your underlying motivations are. If you’re doing something nice, not because its something nice that will make your partner happy but because you’ll “get something” don’t do it.
Whoever heard of going to dinner and just enjoying a nice date with your partner, amiright?
So much for that healthier relationship. If its just means more sex for you…
I’m too tired to parse the feminism 101 that is the first question, but wanted to note that, at least in America, the education system is part of the problem (it actually frightens me the number of ex’s I had to teach basic sex ed to before sexytimes could commence) Abstinence only is just terrible all around though, we’re never going to teach how to have healthy sexytimes if we can’t even admit sexytimes will happen >.<
(Is John's abuse of the comma and inability to handle "cei" not "cie" reminding anyone else of another troll? Guess "i before e" is a common enough failure though.)
“Well, I’ve only got my sex drive to go by. And I love sex, I’d never turn it down.”
“Consider that if your experience (like many women’s) had been one in which you were constantly propositioned for sex by people who you weren’t at all interested in, and expected to give it as a sort of reward for good behavior, your feelings might be very different, and you might be far more inclined to turn it down. I mean really, for me the fending off of sexual propositions that I had in no way indicated were welcome started when I was 9 years old, and was a regular thing from adult men by the time I was 12.
It’s not that women don’t like sex, it’s that our life experience is often one in which the people asking us for sex don’t give a damn whether or not we actually want it. Now imagine that, from that perspective, your but if I plan a night out and sex does not result that makes me feel pissed off scenario.
You already know this stuff, really. It’s just a matter of adjusting your internal attitude to reflect your girlfriend’s reality.”
Yeah I guess I do know most of this stuff, I found it the hard sad way.( It’s quite a hard thing to adjust attitude sometimes .Especially when you just come out of the so called honeymoon period, where all you ever did was bang.)
It’s also funny when I said I’d never turn it down, for the most part I wouldn’t. In my current relationship I wouldnt dream of it. but there have been times.
A few times I’ve been propositioned were actually quite horrible, especially when it was by a very gropey gay man at one stage. I’ve even banged a girl just to get her to stop texting /emailing/ calling, for fear it would escalate and ruin the relationship I was in. (possibly not the wisest thing but I was scared, young and alone on the matter).
I guess my attitude to the nice dinner date thing was: ” I love you, I want to make you happy, I want to show you I care, by spending all this money on you, I’m also very randy, and after holding hands and making out with you all night on a ferris wheel, it is borderline painful to be wearing pants right now.
No sex?
o.k… Was all this sexual chemistry in my head?
And then the inevitable… I’ve put a lot of effort into giving her what I think she wants, why can’t I get what I want.. what am I doing here?”
I’ve never beofre seen it as a manipulation. which I guess she might. I do
What happens to the women who don’t turn down advances, and for want of a better example become more like men?
heres a lol
I’ve found more realism and wisdom on one comments thread of this site, than in the hundreds of heartiste/ roosh posts i’ve read.
Best case they get called sluts and laugh at it, worst case they get raped and told they want sex from everyone else, so they must’ve wanted that sex.
The adjusting after the honeymoon phase is part of every relationship. I suspect you can take care of the problem of pants being painful on your own, and “what [you are] doing here” is enjoying a nice evening on a ferris wheel — it’s definitely manipulation if you only do nice things expecting to get laid, not just cuz you want to do nice things together. That sexytimes are not your payment for being friendly is wtf the vending machine analogy is about.
Also — “I’ve found more realism and wisdom on one comments thread of this site, than in the hundreds of heartiste/ roosh posts i’ve read.” — that’s not really a tough act to top.
I realize you get that it wasn’t wise, but I’m curious how sexytimes with not-your-partner is better for your relationship than letting it go to voicemail. And for the gallery reading along, don’t even give a stalker the reply of “fuck off” complete and total avoidance is the only non-legal strategy, certainly no “sympathy fucks” for stalking behavior; and since I appear to being giving basic tips, groping is wrong, don’t do that either.
And now I’m going to bed before I end up completely nocturnal >.<
I’ll second that advice. Giving in to stalkers has a nasty tendancy to reinforce their misguided attempts.
Did it not occur to you to talk to your gf about the situation?
Usually, when a guy says “I always want sex, but women’s sex drives are so confusing and complicated,” what it really means is “I always initiate sex, so I never actually say ‘no,’ but there are lots of times I just don’t initiate because I don’t want to have sex, but somehow those times are invisible to me.”
(Or somewhat less forgivably, “Yeah, I sometimes say no to sex, but I always do it for reasons that make sense to me, and she does it for reasons that only make sense to her.”)
Everyone’s sex drive is confusing and complicated, when you get down to it.
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Also, a romantic fuzzy-wuzzy dinner? If it goes well, it makes me feel romantic and fuzzy-wuzzy. “Horny” is not necessarily connected to that.
Because, yeah, horny is a thing women feel, and therefore also a thing women sometimes don’t feel. And feeling “I like this guy and he’s done a lot for me” is not at all the same thing as feeling “I want his cock now.”
I think most men can understand this intuitively, because the exact same thing is true of them. How often do you think “I didn’t have a boner for this girl, but she was very nice and considerate to me, so now I have a boner?” Boners don’t work that way! And neither do ladyboners.
Well it kinda happened twice.
After losing the girl stringing me along,I went from having had sex once ever, to never going home alone. It was during one of these nights that I went home with the one I love. She left state for a while to go to a music festival.Two days before that I had met a girl who groped me in the club after hearing about my . ehem. Reputation, from one of her friends. She facebooked me a few days later and proceeded to tell me about how good at one night stands she was etc. For the first time in my life I felt like a man. Albeit a confused one. I really liked the girl I had just met, but could I pass up the opportunity to be like my friends? And also have sex? So I went to hers, and had a night of crazy crazy sex, as well as finding out we had a lot in common. Then the girl I actually liked came back from her trip, we hit it off, and I decided I wanted to give it a go.I told Ms good at one night stands,my intentions, and she promptly lost the plot. Lots of “what does she have that I don’t” sort of things. She then bombarded me with messages and the like threatening to tell the girl I liked etc, I promised to come over to talk about it, and then she got naked. I told her this is it, I’m sorry if I do this I’ll need some space etc, Did the deed. and left. 1 month on , I was still getting heaps of texts, which I mostly didn’t reply to, and then… it ended abruptly.
2 years later, A different girl did something similar, bombarded me with lots of texts etc, and I was too scared she would do something to screw my relationship up if I didn’t do her or told told her eff off, so to speak. So I did her, and it was terrible, aaand she left me alone.
So yeah… That’s how you don’t handle these things.
“lso, a romantic fuzzy-wuzzy dinner? If it goes well, it makes me feel romantic and fuzzy-wuzzy. “Horny” is not necessarily connected to that.
Because, yeah, horny is a thing women feel, and therefore also a thing women sometimes don’t feel. And feeling “I like this guy and he’s done a lot for me” is not at all the same thing as feeling “I want his cock now.”
I think most men can understand this intuitively, because the exact same thing is true of them. How often do you think “I didn’t have a boner for this girl, but she was very nice and considerate to me, so now I have a boner?” Boners don’t work that way! And neither do ladyboners.”
Oh for sure, I certainly agree. But personally, if a girl is being nice and considerate to me… she’s more than likely doing things to my boner.
*headdesk*
The way to a mans boner is being female.
I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic, but if you’re not, then you have not thought through all the people “female” encompasses.
(Or, er, men who aren’t straight.)
Even if you are someone he’s attracted to–I can tell you, as a female person with something very close to an “always on” sex drive, that I have never been in a long-term relationship with a man who didn’t tell me no sometimes.
You still playing the “women owe me sex” game?
I am being sarcastic Cliff. I’m pretty sure his Mom being nice to him doesn’t do anything for his boner.
Annnd..being a woman, I’ve been turned down for sex plenty of times too.
Its the weird conflation of nice behaviour with sex from women being tied together. Maybe I’m just over reading here.
Not exactly. More the “I don’t understand that women have actual sex drives, I thought they just gave you sex when they liked you enough” game.
Lol! Well Cliff, he has a two percent chance of being right about women not having sex drives with each new woman encountered. Good odds on him being right eh?
Y’know, this particular troll is starting to seem familiar. That “I was raped but I enjoyed it” bit, I think I’ve seen it before. Possibly even from him.
You know, I had this long comment I was writing about the romantic birthday dinner my man made me last night, and the sex we didn’t have, and how he’s cool with it because when he does romantic things for me he doesn’t expect a reward for it, just like I don’t expect a reward when the positions are reversed… but fuck it. I just have a single question for y’all:
Who wants “well, you really kinda owe me” sex? Who in hell wants an unenthusiastic partner who’s lying there, hoping it’ll be over soon? I want my partner to want to have sex with me, not feel obligated to have sex with me.
Viscaria – Yeah, seriously. If the best you can expect from sex is “Well, gosh, after you went to all that trouble, I spose you can use my vagina,” that’s pretty sad. It’s not much like “I’m actually turned on” sex.
Hershele – I dunno. There’s more than one guy with that story. “Rape is okay if the girl was hot” seems to be a pretty common belief that goes hand in hand with “men literally always want sex.”
Maybe it’s just me, but a big fancy dinner with wine doesn’t make me want sexy times. It makes me sleepy! If we’re both in the mood, I’d rather have sex first then go out and celebrate… But yeah, women are people, and people are different, so YMMV.
Re: “I’d never turn down sex”, I’ll take your word for it, I guess. But my experience leads me to believe that a lot of guys may say this thinking sex w/ their SO is inferred or that OF COURSE they only meant with hot ladies they were into. I’ve known men to turn down advances from women they found unattractive, from women they weren’t into, from women they thought were way more into them than they were them, etc. And though I don’t have any personal experience with this, I imagine there are plenty of dudes who would turn down sex if they were just simply too tired, or felt sick. Even you mention you’ve turned down advances from people. I hate it when people try to defend their position by saying this, like “but see, I’m a sex vending machine too!” No. No you aren’t. You’re a human being. There are probably times you want sex, and times you don’t. Times you want it more and times you want it less. And people you’ll want it with and people you won’t. Which is totally OK. There are variations between people, some people don’t seem to have much of a drive at all and others have a very high libido, but damn, never’s a LONG time. Perpetuating the meme that there are “some people” who won’t ever turn down sex for any reason ever (men, “sluts”, etc) perpetuates the rape culture.
Re: “Is that rape?” technically, I’d venture to say yes, unless you’d previously had a conversation that went something like, “hey honey, you know what’d be kinda hot?” or her saying, “hey, you know, this sounds hot to me. Would you be interested?” And you’d said yes. Generally, if this conversation didn’t happen prior to this occurrence, I’d say that you didn’t really have a chance to give consent before the act started and that’s not cool. At the very least, it really sounds to me like both you and your GF have some serious issues with boundaries and sexual agency – which isn’t healthy.
Re: “Are perfect relationships supposed to make you never want for anything?” uh, no. That is a LOT of pressure to put on your partner. Even when monogamy’s your thing, it just seems downright silly to expect one person to be your everything. I’m very much in the camp of relationships shouldn’t make you feel strained, but expecting them to be 100% rainbows all the time isn’t realistic either.
Re: “All she wants to do is make out” has she mentioned anything about how much she enjoys the sex? If not, have you considered asking her? Or asking what you can do to make it better for her? What she’d maybe like to try? This is assuming a lot here, so this may be way out of line, but communication really is key. If you aren’t talking much about the sex, maybe now’s the time to start. I know for me personally, nothing is a bigger turn on than a dude asking what it is I’d like him to do to me. However, it may very well be that you two just have vastly different libidos and if that’s a problem for you, you can get out, rather than getting bitter about buying her dinner and movies and not getting any. Or if you decide you really want to stay with her and stay monogamous, you’re going to have to figure out a way to get around your different libidos that doesn’t involve your getting angry or bitter. Only you can decide what’s best for you. But the one thing that probably isn’t best is just letting things stay the way they are. It sounds like you know this already, but don’t want to face it.
It sounds to me like you kinda have at least enough self-awareness to suspect maybe that your cluelessness is hurtful in general, and probably damaging your current relationship, but don’t really want to do the heavy lifting in terms of becoming less clueless. Tough break, dude. Shrugging off cultural memes isn’t easy. Though in my opinion, definitely worth it.
Re: the friendzoning friend. Dude, give that a REST. It happened, it sucked. Leave it be. Nobody here is saying it doesn’t suck when you’re disappointed romatically, and even if, as you say, you weren’t bitter, your words are showing you’ve got a fundamental problem with accepting that other people are entitled to turn down romantical/sexytimes advances, JUST LIKE YOU. Can people who “friendzone” (though I hate to use that as a verb) be manipulative? Yes. Lots of people, men and women can be manipulative. Does it suck? Yes. But you can get out. Like you said you did. So LET IT GO. Stop reappropriating and projecting your experience on everyone else.
p.s. That’s leaving aside the other problems which people have already pointed out.
I’m also so sick of this “sex is for men, romance is for women” idea. No, sex is for people who like sex, romance is for people who like romance. If the only thing you (general you, not anybody in particular) get out of a romantic gesture is the resentful hope that you’ll be properly rewarded for it in sex, maybe you should find a partner who isn’t into romance just like you aren’t. You don’t even have to enjoy it for its own sake, necessarily, but if you’re not at least deriving some pleasure from the fact that it’s making your partner happy, it’s not the right thing for you.
Also, just because someone is a woman doesn’t mean she will appreciate every romantic gesture you make. She might not like romance. Her reactions might depend on who is being romantic and how. It is not just a matter of “she’s a lady, ladies like this, it will earn me sex!”