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.
—
* Hetero cis penis only.
Men tend to refer to themselves as men or boys. The English language uses men or women to clearly deliniate that we are above animals, the exceptions being medicine or police work. So when you refer to women being females, you are clearly implying we aren’t quite human.
Its called Language of Derrogation, so no its not a silly assumption.
” Jesus! Are you also stuck using the N word to refer to Black people too?”
That’s derogatory, and everyone knows it. Using female and male, for humans is something I’ve grown up with, and was used at my school for example.
Lady teachers, were usually referred to as female members of staff etc by other staff.
I’m sorry I offended you.
If he refers to men as males and women as females and you get all huffy over the female part, then you are actually the sexist.
@Le John —
“Was your ex, in total despair when he said it or, being a conniving little rat?
Is there a difference?”
No, there really isn’t. You want compliments, fish for compliments, not sex. (Or use your words and actually ask what she thinks of you/your body/etc)
@ideologuereview — more like we don’t care wtf he calls himself, he can call himself a llama for all we care, he just doesn’t get to call anyone else a llama (this is an analogy, and an admittedly bad one) — but really, no one outside academia refers to either men or women as males/females, and I at least hadn’t noticed any examples of Le John using males
“female members of staff” seems a correct and non offensive phrasing (provided that “male members of staff” was also in use), because it uses ‘female’ as a qualifier and an adjective, not a noun.
And you might mean no disrespect, but calling women ‘females’ or ‘girls’ while calling men ‘men’ is a very common way for misogynists on the internet. You might at well avoid it, let only not to be confused with these people.
ideologuereview: how are you? How is you game about punching pregnant women doing? You still haven’t said anything about it since you ran away, I’m so curious to find the facts…
@Kyrie, oh, he’s a return troll? I’ll stop trying to be polite-ish then, thanks for the info. (Great, now my shitty llama analogy is sure to come back to haunt me)
@Le John, listen to Kyrie regarding male/man female/woman. Also, it’s only grammatically appropriate as a qualifier, or in academic uses, it’s misogynistic, and bad grammar.
Yes, Argenti, he used to be as FactFinder, but ran away and tried sockpuppeting. By “Finding Facts” he meant copying a few quotes, preferably out of context, of manboobzer on a website nobody (except us, a few times) ever read.
Then he linked to a page about developing a game called “preggo punchout” (IIRC) about two pregnant prostitutes fighting over the billionaire biologic father of both foetus. The last one with a live foetus would win marriage with the man.
I feel this is the kind of facts (wink wink) people should know. 🙂
pillowinhell: The English language uses men or women to clearly deliniate that we are above animals, the exceptions being medicine or police work
Or other places where the gender of the person is being made plain. I acquired the use of “female” and a grammar for it while I was in the Army. The easiest way to explain it is that when I’d be saying, “female soldier,” etc. the modified noun may be implicit.
But absent some need to be specific, women is good.
I suspect what makes it misogynistic is that it gets used in place of, “girls” because people know that upsets people. Le John’s comment that he uses female because he isn’t comfortable with the idea of “women” seems related to that.
Le John: What’s the problem with “woman”? I hope your girlfriend is older than 16? I am assuming (from other evidence) that she’s older than 18, and probably more than 21.
I’d call those women*; and I’m old enough I no longer flinch when people in their twenties call me sir.
*depending on context I might say the 16 year old was a young women, or even a girl, in the same way I would call a 16 year old male either a boy or a young man. It would depend on the context of the discussion.
IR, have you actually reviewed any ideologies lately?
Hows the game going? Are you punching facts these days? Or finding preggos?
I get lost, the product of your mind being so incredible.
“Le John: What’s the problem with “woman”? I hope your girlfriend is older than 16? I am assuming (from other evidence) that she’s older than 18, and probably more than 21.”
She is indeed, 25 actually. But her maturity level, similar to mine, is that of a teenage girl, I struggle to see her as a woman, which I’ve kinda reserved in my head for grown up, adult females (adjective use there). girl is probably closer, young woman probably best. I probably feel most comfortable with terms female or young lady though.
I’m weird like that.
@Le John, if you’re both about the same age, would you call yourself a boy or a man? (This isn’t meant as MRA “are you a real man?” but as “do you personally still prefer boy?”) — assuming you’d not call yourself a boy, it’s not really appropriate to call women of the same age girls. Though, we’re talking about your girlfriend here, just pay attention to how she refers to herself and use that. For everyone else, use women, young woman, or, if referring to an actual child, girl.
Young lady makes many women a bit squirmish that you’re going to follow it with something like “sit like a proper young lady!” — the implications of being a proper lady are not always wanted, whereas woman is comparable to man. So when speaking to a general audience, just stick with women/men (you could also always use humans or people if gender isn’t relevant to the matter at hand)
@Kyrie — “Then he linked to a page about developing a game called “preggo punchout” (IIRC) about two pregnant prostitutes fighting over the billionaire biologic father of both foetus. The last one with a live foetus would win marriage with the man.” — omfgs wtf? Go play GTA or something dude, you can run over all the prostitutes you want without the flash development headaches. (I kind of hate the GTA series, but it’s not as vile as that “concept”)
Also, another one with a thing for BRAIN FACTS! eh? Do any MRAs actually believe in research, or is that how they can love ev-psych so much?
By all means use young lady or young woman if that’s more comfortable for you than just saying woman. “Females” is offensive which has already been explained better by other people. I have to say I’m suspicious of your actual sincerity about this here, first because you feel the need to slip in a passive aggressive “females (adjective use there)” into your comment for some reason, and second, looking back at your old comments you seemed to have no problem referring to the person you were with as a “woman” until it was pointed out that you were using “females” in a problematic way.
Le John: You won’t feel, “grown up” for ages. As a friend commented to me once, “Pecunium, we’re the same age as we ever were, when did they all get so young?”
Call her a woman.
Lol, amen to that Pecunium, I’ve reached old enough the songs on the radio came out when I was in HS, my best friend and I both just keep going “shit, so that makes us adults now huh? when did that happen?“
Yeah. I love the fact that what I listened to in high school is now ironically old school. Pretty soon I’ll only hear it on am stations me thinks.
By all means use young lady or young woman if that’s more comfortable for you than just saying woman. “Females” is offensive which has already been explained better by other people. I have to say I’m suspicious of your actual sincerity about this here, first because you feel the need to slip in a passive aggressive “females (adjective use there)” into your comment for some reason, and second, looking back at your old comments you seemed to have no problem referring to the person you were with as a “woman” until it was pointed out that you were using “females
Fair enough.I don’t think I called my girlfriend a woman though, it honestly feels weird coming out of my mouth, as it would if she called me a man. And I did sincerely want to qualify I wasn’t regressing back to using “females” the wrong way. lol The phrase “for want of a better term” may have been better employed.
Anyway, I’m sincere about everything, I just have trouble communicating.
Le John: Well the full story is kind of funny, I was in love with this girl for a year, I would do anything for her, lapping up any affection I got. she was adamant she only wanted friendship… untill of course I got with other girls.
Not a “female” in the lot.
In this comment you said, “But for my particular relationship, where I’ve found me flirting with other women/.” Other women is inclusive.
In a previous comment, about the bad relationship, you also said, “other women.” That might have been different, because one could argue that she acted in an, otherwise, more mature way, but it’s a pattern you said you don’t have.
You said you called women “females” generically. It seems that isn’t the case.
The last link (lest I get into moderation with this comment) is the icing on the cake, What happens to the women who don’t turn down advances, and for want of a better example become more like men?
That’s a generic statement about generic people. You use the noun form, not the adjective.
Also, Le John, obits for people as young as 21 use man, I just checked. No “young man” modifier, just “a man” — but then again I’m still trying to wrap my brain around this one:
His use of English isn’t nearly his biggest issue >.< (That's me he's quoting in the first paragraph there)
You have. http://manboobz.com/2012/05/06/friend-zoning-out/comment-page-6/#comment-152391 there’s one. There are more, I’m not going to do your homework for you though especially on things you yourself have actually written.
You have. http://manboobz.com/2012/05/06/friend-zoning-out/comment-page-6/#comment-152391 there’s one. There are more, I’m not going to do your homework for you though especially on things you yourself have actually written.
Well another thing is, I also tend to get a little bit detached- in my mind, initially what I was saying could just as easily have been a fabrication. But when I think about the one I’m with, talk more personally and tell you about her more, humanizing her more, in a sense, I can’t think of her really as a woman, and thats about the time I dropped the F bomb.
I like what you all did- poring through comments etc to sort of rigorously test my sincerity etc.
Do you have a problem here with the MRA fellows trolling you often?
Le John, read the top of the site again >.< Yes, MRA trolls are a common thing (as in multiple of them daily) — check out the other current thread. The most recent comment there ends with “so probably one of our revolving door trolls.”
Considering this is basically a site centred on internet flaming, I guess you would want to make sure I wasn’t on the mra side. Just wondering, does it get raised super often, that mra is also a shortened acronym for methycilin resistant staph aureus? I do get a little laugh when I read it.
that’s mrsa. Why would anyone raise that?
Because they’re both potentially dangerous infections? (idk why anyone would mention it given MRA =/= MRSA, but now that Le John has, I find it kind of amusing)
Cliff,
This, and other comments in a similar vein, got me thinking. Maybe this is not true? Because I have thought almost exactly that quite often. (No actual boner, because I practically do not get random boners; also, it’s not quite deterministic in that there are probably people that could be “nice and considerate”, or really interesting, and still no boner). Now, obviously, that one person is a certain way absolutely does not mean that other people are as well; but, until one knows about the variability involved, considering others as people seems to entail considering them essentially similar to oneself.
This is more about the ‘friend zone’ than about the romantic date scenario, but the same thing applies. It would be completely reasonable for someone to assume that friendship and acting nice toward each other are good methods for potential dating if that is what would work for them, and often is what causes the attraction they feel in the first place. Of course (as for example pecunium explained earlier) it will have bad effects for people who are not like that.
Certainly, some of the people complaining about friend zones are misogynists who refuse to see women as people. But I wonder for how many of them it’s because they are slightly on the grey-A scale.
(Which, just to be clear, would certainly not justify angry reactions.)