So the Men’s Rightsers over on Reddit are getting worked up over the evils of women “friend zoning” men, and one especially angry fellow by the name of andreipmbcn has a warning for the ladies: if they don’t watch themselves, the men’s rights movement might just rise up and make friend zoning illegal:
What this means is not exactly clear to me. Would women actually be required to have sex with all men who are aggressively “nice” towards them? Who knows. But judging from the dozens of upvotes andre’s comment got, Reddit MRAs like the sound of it.
(Thanks to Cloudiah for pointing me to this lovely comment.)
Another possible reason I’ve heard that so many of these mra’s are getting friend zoned so much is because they are aiming out of their league. In their terms, they are 4s and 5s trying to hit on 8s and 9s. They are going to get friend zoned.
Part 4: The Family Reunion
0_o
Ashley:
1. For the umpteenth time, there is no such thing as the friend zone.
2. People are not numbers. And rating anyone, MRAs, feminists or whoever, as numbers and saying that they are aiming out of their league is whole levels of wrong.
While I have met women who *do* actually admit to using men for favors/home repairs/money/dinners/etc, they tend to be the minority. (Although using someone in this manner is still horrible.)
One thing I’ve pointed out numerous times in various comments sections is the fact that people should be more up front about what sort of relationship they truly want. If you are looking for friendship…then you’ll be there for your friend and they’ll be there for you. (Fair weather friends need not apply.)
If you want to be more than friends (whatever that might entail for you), then be up front about it. Don’t act chummy, helpful, overly nice and do favors all the time if the ONLY reason you’re doing so is to get laid. I don’t owe my friends sex if they help me put up a shelving unit…just the same as they don’t owe me sex for pet sitting or helping them move.
I think that I’ll cover this as my weekly post on Sunday/Monday. It seems like a discussion point worth investigating…
“Manipulation of men’s volitions”?
I’ve never manipulated a man’s volition in my life. Not even with latex gloves on.
Take comfort in the fact that there are men who also use women. Being an a$$hole isn’t specific to one gender or the other. Not that MRMs see it that way. In fact, many MRMs seem proud of the fact that they use women.
And guys seem to use friendzone to mean whatever they want. I’ve had guys I knew for a few hours accuse me of friend zoning them. I was not their friend. They hit on me I rejected them.
There are guys who complain about being friendzoned when they never make their interest known. How on earth am I suppose to know that when you hang out with a group of my friends that you like me? You could like a different woman in the group or you could just be a friend.
Anyhow……
If I never hear the word “friendzone” again from this minute until my dying day, it will be too soon.
Kittehs, you made me sporfle!
Brittersweet: So the best solution to accommodate both those ideas would probably be to completely isolate the genders. Women-only restaurants, bars, gyms, grocery stores, hotels, etc. But I think those same schmucks would be unhappy with that too.
We could divide the country along the Mississippi River; men on one side, women on the other.
@inurashii and katz
I was also imagining a dystopia, one where women avoid men at all costs so that the men won’t do nice things for them.
I guess sort of like women going their own way. Lol
Glad to be of sporfling assistance, cloudiah!
“Friendzone” says so much about the person using it, none of it good. Men and women can’t be friends. The only reason to be “nice” (and their definition of that is dubious) to a woman is for sex. She’s failing her part of the bargain if she doesn’t put out, even if that means she has to mind-read because the NiceGuyTM hasn’t actually said anything to suggest he fancies her.
Makes me wonder if these guys are friends with other men. Possibly not. Like every MRA I’ve ever read, they seem unacquainted with any warm feelings, any likes, any tenderness, anything but outrage that they can’t shove their peens into whoever they fancy, whenever they fancy.
The saddest part of the whole thing is how disappointed they are to make friends. I made a grumpy cat to illustrate.
Hey Louisiana woman
Mississippi man
We get together every time we can
The Mississippi River can’t keep us apart
There’s too much love in the Mississippi heart
Too much love in this Louisiana heart
Frilled sharks are awesome — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frilled_shark
Frilledshark is thus an awesome nym.
I have nothing useful to say, nope.
katz, I laughed aloud at that!
Sometimes I think this friend zone crap is caused by guys who just don’t want to hear the word “no”. Asking someone out an putting your feelings (or in the case of mra types, ego) on the line is hard and no one wants to be shot down by someone they have feelings for. Hell, I have hard no waaaaayyyyyyy more often than I have heard a yes. So, instead of being up front and honest with her these guys insert themselves into someones life hoping for either her to figure out how much she really neeeeeds him or for the friendship to gradually morph into a relationship without her even knowing… Which is pretty slimey and dishonest actually.
I fail to understand why “friend zoning” is bad? Is the implication that women are only useful for their vaginas? Yeah… super shocking why these men get “friend zoned”. I just think if these types of men would treat women like actual human beings instead of blow-up dolls, most of their “problems” would go away. I’m not saying women are all innocent angels. There are plenty of mean assholes of both genders, but I also don’t find it particularly shocking that men like this only seem able to attract “bitches”. Like attracts like. Funny how being decent and kind and classy seems to draw awesome people into your life. Maybe they should try it, instead of whining constantly.
I also don’t get why they are so obsessed with getting laid… if you just want sex for orgasms and are not interested in any kind of actual relationship or connection with another human being, why wouldn’t you just masturbate? Oh wait… they ARE masturbating, but they’re too lazy to use their hand… they’d rather use women.
@hellkell
Libertarian. I don’t think that word means what they think it means.
That is because it is not a game stupid. Women are not some kind of prize you get for behaving decently.
Nor are women vending machines you put the coins of kindness into and get sex as a result.
OH MY GOD, THIS HAPPENED ONCE AT THE COURT I WORK AT!
This dude sued his ex girlfriend over something really trivial but ultimately was complaining she broke up with him because she wanted some better guy (even though she did not and in fact he was the first guy she dated after her divorce.) He wound up paying six grand to her ex-husband (who was an attorney and represented her.) She was so nice too, did not even ask for sanctions on what was clearly a frivolous lawsuit.
@Zach re: friendzoning… do you feel women are not worthy of anything from you but your dick? Like… is being “just friends” with a woman really a fate worse than death? When you’re nice to a woman and she turns you down for sex, but you hang around and keep being nice to her, she THINKS you are okay with “just being friends”, but you take it as some kind of affront or abuse from her. It’s not. Shockingly, some women really DO just want to be friends with some guys. It’s not an assault on you. Are we required to sleep with every man who is nice to us? If we do, won’t we get labeled sluts in short order? I think if all you want from a woman is a sexual relationship and she tells you no, that you should go away and stop hanging out in the “friendzone” like things are going to change.
It’s the guy being a jerk if he doesn’t respect the woman’s “no”, and still keeps being nice and “friends” with her, not because he sees her as a worthy friend, but because he STILL thinks somehow, someway, that magical vagina gate is going to open for him.
While you’re crying in your beer about how abused you are, you might stop and consider how a woman feels when a man treats her like this. Really… women do have a right not to want to have sex with you… for any reason they don’t want to have sex with you. And if that’s all you want, then you should walk away, not still hang out and bitch about it to your male friends behind closed doors. Even the concept of “friendzoning” is disrespectful to women who actually do have more value in life than spreading their legs for your amusement.
Being “friend-zoned” means you have been rejected. It does not mean she even wants to be “friends” because if you were friends, you would already be friends. She merely wants to be “friendly.”
You’ll know if she REALLY wants to be friends if she tries to set you up with one of her friends. That’s a nice consolation prize, possibly.
And yes, as a woman I have been “friend-zoned” (=politely rejected) scores of times. And it smarts. But as you get older you realize when someone politely rejects you, they’re doing you a real kindness by not stringing you along and wasting your time.
But this kind of bullshit is why I NEVER let a man pay for dinner.
@hellkell – Scratch a libertarian, you often find a wannabe totalitarian dictator. Very often libertarians simply want to be free to do whatever they want without any concern or consideration for how their actions affect anything or anyone else–I’ve observed that what libertarians characterize as a violation of their rights is often no more than other people’s refusal to devote their time, energy, etc. to fulfilling the libertarians’ wants.
By the way, if you’re interested in a scathing & entertaining dissection of libertarianism, check out John Scalzi’s website & key in “objectivist jerky”, & prepare to laugh harder than you have all month!
Also @Zach, part of my post the “you” is the general third person, you, I don’t think you personally are actually whining about being friend-zoned, because you seem to have “strategies” to avoid that. Since I haven’t yet read your site (though I will) I can’t say one way or the other anything about them so I want. I’m just arguing the whole concept of “friendzoning” being a thing, based in part on your reply about how friendzoning is very real and very painful to many men.
Ironically the reason a lot of men end up in some “friendzone” is because the woman actually doesn’t want to hurt them. But it’s always a little painful when someone we like and want to have a sexual/romantic relationship with doesn’t want us back. That’s just part of life, minimizing women’s right to agency by turning basic rejection into the crime of “friendzoning” is just bullshit.
What kind of manipulative asshole would try to do a friendship with a woman, be nice to a woman, and then act like he was owed upon finding out that that friend ship was *shock* a friendship, and not a pre-relationship!
The friendzone: real to manipulative assholes.
I do not care.