Hey fellas! While we’re talking about the evils of the Friend Zone and possible legal sanctions against the women who so often and so maliciously put us there — and while the women are distracted by that picture of Scrooge McDuck above — I’d like to warn you of another kind of Friend Zone you need to be wary of: the “Repair Friend” Zone.
I learned of this danger from none other than Warren Farrell himself, in the pages of his book Women Can’t Hear What Men Don’t Say (which amazingly does not have the subtitle “But It’s Not Like Angry Dudes On The Internet Are Going to Shut Up Any Time Soon”).
Here’s how old Warren explains it, perhaps exaggerating the innocence of the wily female Repair-Friend Zoners:
Single moms who rely on male friends for repairs — “he’s just a repair friend” — are often unaware that the man really isn’t sacrificing his Sunday afternoon in exchange for a Sunday night dinner. The truth is, if he’s making that type of sacrifice, it’s usually because he’s interested in her.
That’s right, ladies! Men never actually want to be just friends with you. Never. And when they act friendly, it’s just because they want to [insert weird creepy Warren Farrellesque euphemism for sex here]. Only instead of making a move on you they’d rather make a move on your car, and just sort of hope you’ll get the hint.
I’ve seen many single moms who have men who they claim are “just friends” work on their cars, do repairs, help them move. They think nothing of it. (Which says it all.) When she starts dating someone seriously, the “repair friend” feels hurt and her new boyfriend feels suspicious. And Mom feels caught between a rock and a hard place, so to speak.
Is Farrell making some sort of awkward boner joke here?
Anyway, for Farrell, this is somehow all the fault of women, and feminism, or misandry, or something.
This attitude rests on a deeper foundation. Just as women who are poor turn to the government as a substitute husband (in the form of welfare and AFDC payments), so women without husbands often unconsciously turn to substitute husbands, such as dads, “repair friends,”and male neighbors.
So, fellas, be careful out there. One moment you’ll be chatting casually over the fence with the former Mrs. Jones, and the next thing you know you’ll be in her basement buried deep in her washing machine trying to fix, I dunno, whatever is inside of washing machines that might need fixing, I’m not really very mechanical.
Come to think of it a female friend of mine had me change a light bulb the other day that she couldn’t reach. Granted, I don’t want to have sex with her, and also she’s fixed my bike on several occasions and sometimes brings me cake, but, still, I think I may have just been Light Bulb Friend Zoned.
Budmin: @fade I guess there’s a threshold that has to be reached. Doing one favor isn’t going to turn you into an automatic chump but if the cycle goes flirt, favor, flirt, favor,flirt, favor, favor…favor
Who is deciding this, “cycle” is going on? How does the guy know she is flirting? Oh right… that’s not really important, because she let him do those “favors” (the one with the hidden agenda of getting sex), she didn’t hand over the goods.
@gillyrosebee Oh! please accept my m0st humble apologies. It was not my intent to impune your character.
Liar.
But like I said, I don’t know your threshold and I would dream of defining it for you. that would just be ridiculous.
But you would dream of defining it if a dude was the one who did, “The Favor”.
Hypocrite.
B) That, plus I’m still nursing some trauma from working security a NYC family shelter where I had to do everything from help the female residents juggle which guy they where dating, physically intervene during domestic violence incidents, console lost and dejected losers and Yes I even had to break up with a few dudes at the behest of the often times rude female residents. I mean yeah I’ve seen a LOT of broken men.. but I’m not bitter or nuttin’.
Cool story bro: When I Was working homeless shelters that shit didn’t happen. Not the guards, nor the intake staff, nor the food staff, nor the custodial staff (i.e. those who oversaw the people, not the janitors) nor even the counselors, had to do that shit. In a violent dispute between clients, we called the cops. “Intervention” was only enough to prevent physical harm to other clients.
But cool story.
If a guy lets his romantic inclinations be know to the person he’s opining for the least she could do is not to take advantage of his eagerness. It might not be a good idea to treat him as a confidant.
Way to move those goalposts. I thought this was all about how dudes do favors, in the unstated hope of sexual favors in return, and are burned because the women never put out.
Now it’s a dude who tells a woman he has “romantic inclinations” (by which I think you mean he wants to fuck her), and she “takes advantage of his eagerness” (as if he were no more than a puppy, all bright-eyed and eager to please).
That’s a completely different argument from emotional blackmailing Nice Guys tm.
No, it’s not. It’s exactly the same. Let’s break down the scenario you have described.
1: Dude does some nice stuff for girl, because he is sappy hot for her.
2: She doesn’t pick up on this.
3: He tells her, she isn’t interested.
4: If she doesn’t tell him to take a nice long hike, but rather says, “I’m not interested in romance. I like you as my friend,” she is manipulating him… instant dishrag.
This is The Nice Guy™ script. It’s what you’re selling.
Oh Com’on now really!? I’m a[n asshole], I talk like a[n asshole]. I joke LIKE A[N ASSHOLE].
FTFY
your post will make one of the worlds top 100 thinkers look dummer than all of you at some point.
Top 100… so up there with Aristotle (well maybe, there was the thing abot women’s teeth and king bees, but we’ll give him a moderate pass because the Greeks had a different scientific paradigm), the Buddha (and Hillel, and Jesus… all of whom had a pretty good handle on “treat each other decently; regarldless of what others have done to the message since) and Newton, and Leibniz, and Mendeleev, and Linneaus, and Lavoisier, and Mary Wollestonecraft and Diderot, and Da Vinci, and Kant, and Hegel, and Marx, and shit I’m not going to try to make a list because 1: it’s a lot of work; and the quantizing is murder, and 2: there are so many more than 100 who are smarter than Farrell.
Hell, even if I limit it to comtemporaneous people, there are more than 100 who are demonstrably. Steven Jay Gould, Paul Krugman, Abi Sutherland, Susan Faludi….
It seams that the popular opinion here is that I made the top 100 thinkers thing up myself.
Nope, just that he’s not. It’s also amusing that you seem to think we think citing The Warrell about the brilliance of The Warrell is convincing.
Farrell is a hack. His scholarship is crap, his honesty is questionable and his ideas are both harebrained and repulsive. He thinks poorly of men; and worse of women (that is if he really sees them as people, The more I look at the implications of his collected works the more I think he doesn’t really accord them the same status as men; that right there moves him out of the “Top 100”, in my book).
Budmin
No. Your a misogynist. A liar. An abusive asshole who won’t own his shit (yes, I am impugning you, and that should tell you for what).
So no, until those things stop being true, we ain’t gonna be cool.
1 & 2 I believe in personal accountability, I don’t think I’ve levied blame at anyone’s feet.
Liar
If you feel otherwise that’s your prerogative.
Thank you, I am so glad you approve my letting people know you are a liar.
And now I have to go to work. Have fun, I’ll catch up when I get home.
@pecunium
Accurate.
@Budmin
Wow. Where to start. Men in a homeless shelter are broken, but women in a homeless shelter are just regular manipulative users, because they just sit on a sidewalk and lovesick men throw money at them — right?
As for intervening in domestic violence incidents, it was your job. You got paid for it. With taxes. That I and many other women contribute to. What, you think you deserve a fuck just for doing your job? I hope you never work at a hospital.
@Budmin
Wanda: You think you’re an intellectual, don’t you, ape?
Otto: Apes don’t read philosophy.
Wanda: Yes, they do, Otto, they just don’t understand it. Now, let me correct you on a couple of things, okay? Aristotle was not Belgian. The central message of Buddhism is not “every man for himself”. The London Underground is not a political movement. Those are all mistakes.
~ A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
Wait, so… all these times I’ve fixed my neighbour’s computer, and I’m not going to get sex out of it? Well that sucks.
Oh, Bernard, I thought you loved me! Ah well, to be fair, he is about forty years older than me, and married, as well as heterosexual as far as I’m aware… it would be weird.
Does anyone other than Warren Farrell even have any citations on that “top 100 thinkers” thing? Because I tried to find it, he supposedly was one of the Financial Times “Top 100 Thought Leaders”, but I can’t find anything about that piece except in places talking about Warren Farrel himself.
Googling the phrases “Top One Hundred Thought Leaders” and “Financial Times” I get the impression that Dr. Farrell is the only person who has ever been on this “Top One Hundred Thought Leaders” list. I certainly feel safe coming to the conclusion that he makes a lot bigger deal about being on this list than the other 99 thought leaders who supposedly appeared on it with him. Grumpy Cat is not impressed.
In fact I can’t find the actual list anywhere, only references to it. And regardless it’s just somebody’s list of 100 people they personally think are important; if I made a list of who I think are the 100 best thinkers in the world, that wouldn’t suddenly make them beyond criticism.
Wondering about another credential Farrell claims about being chosen by the International Biographic Centre of London as 2000 Outstanding Scholars of the 20th Century, I Googled the phrase “International Biographic Centre of London.” It yields 655 hits, and I can’t find a single one that doesn’t have to do with Farrell being chosen for that list. It almost gives the impression that choosing him for this list of Outstanding Scholars is the only thing the International Biographic Centre of London has ever done. But really, there’s 1999 others and Farrell is the only one who brags about it on the Internet? The 20th century wasn’t that long ago so I doubt they’re all dead by now.
Marie — after going to two EA concerts my mother sings along in the car. Now I just need to convince her that she is, in fact, a plague rat.
Kitteh — destroying ovaries via radiation is new, and awful, news to me. I imagine it had the same thoughts behind as so many others — if she dies it just means “we” got to her too late to save her from her madness. Fucking fucked up.
@Amused
Why do people on this site feel the need to read what I wrote then embellish a bun-ch of extra crap…
All I’m saying is that women share some (but not all) the responsibility in insuring that a guy’s unrequited love doesn’t turn into an out of control infatuation. All I have ever requested was that ladies simply refuse to take advantage of a poor chaps good nature. Nothing more nothing less.
This vile talk of “sexual entitlement” & …fornication comes only from the fevered imaginations of these poor misguided, rage filled commentors who are too battle wary to recognize the olive branch of peace so firmly hold in my heart.
It pains me to no end that you oh wise & noble Amused would engage in such demagoguery.
You do however bring up a some noteworthy issues,
_Men in a homeless shelter are broken, but women in a homeless shelter are just regular manipulative users, because they just sit on a sidewalk and lovesick men throw money at them — right?
The NYC shelter system is a interesting animal. I was at an 82 family tier 2 facility for 4 years. I worked the evening shift front desk 4pm to 12pm so I could go to school.
Tier2s offer temporary lodgings for residents who were waiting for their housing vouchers. So basically, the residents where apartment hunting most of the time. The average turn over for check-in, voucher then check-out was on about 3to4 months. Some stayed longer because workfare programs provided trade schooling, financial assistance and job placement. There was never more then 3 male headed families living there at a time. We had married & unmarried couples there too but if the baby’s father acted up or cheated then the mother would have him removed from the building.
Everyone knew how the system worked, even the boyfriends, lovers and Nice Guys or S.I.M.Ps as they are known in the hood.
Men would staidly prowl the streets looking for any chick pushing a stroller believing that if that they courted the single mom right, they (meaning the men) would be living with her rent free on the government’s dime. That was the plan anyway.
Long story short, these women always had the upper hand. They had the voucher, they were the recognized head of house hold, they had the loop holes and insensitive to exploit domestic violence laws, they had the social capital, they had the power.
These women were being given a world of opportunities while the idiot men would come to my facility asking to be let in so that they may have the honor of paying for some unfaithful women’s phone bills, Christmas gifts, groceries etc..
So as far as my lived experiences goes, and as far as women dealing with personal relationships & the government, Warren Farrell is absolutely right 100%. Hating him will not change that.
@budmin
See, that right there is why everyone
thinksknows you’re a misogynistic asshat. It is not our fault if guys are interested in us. It is theirs. If they want their affections to be known, they can use their words. Heck, the frickin’ five year old I babysit can get I don’t know what he wants until he tells me, I don’t see how a bunch of grown men can’t understand…“All I have ever requested was ladies be mind-readers to decipher which men actually are just being friendly, and which are only being friendly to get laid. No more, no less”
re: the rest of your rant: have you ever actually, like, lived on earth?
Wait wait wait, can we back this fucked up bus up?! Cuz hot damn!
Smile mothers, in a homeless shelter, can prevent men from visiting, even if bearing gifts? OH HAI idiocy! Abusive men often try to apologize via gifts, many homeless // temporarily housed women have left abusive relationships. Oh fuck yeah she should have the right to say “he isn’t allowed to see me or my kids”. Barring a custody arrangement that she’d be violating by doing that, it makes perfect sense.
Ever wonder why it was families? Because the housing authorities give priority to keeping children off the street, and thus, also the person caring for them.
Why the fuck is the term “best interests of the child” so and for MRAs?!
Lessee.
Three of the first four results for camft award for outstanding contribution to psychology are about Farrell (as well as two of the top four for “camft award for outstanding contribution”). CAMFT does exist and it does give awards, but searching their website for his name returns nothing, and the above search also shows no other recipients of that particular award nor references to it that aren’t already about Farrell, so it’s likely that that particular award either doesn’t exist or is irrelevant enough that Farrell is more prominent than the award itself.
The next award is “Renaissance Weekend member,” which surprisingly is not a ren faire, but is the sort of invitation-only event that presumably exists primarily to be put on lists of notable awards.
On Step Institute actually does exist. It’s an MRA organization, of course. Check out their articles; the first one is “Where’s the White House council on men and boys?”
The honorary doctorates appear to be probably-real, assuming that “Professional School of Psychology, San Diego” refers to the California School of Professional Psychology.
But it’s not just about imagined sexual entitlement; it’s also about imagined entitlement to any kind of intimacy.
Also, “olive branch of peace?” FFS.
That’s nice. Now go run along and play.
No, seriously, you have never stated how women are supposed to tell if some guy doing us favors is our friend or some Nice Guy TM who thinks he’s owed sex. You just act like we’re supposed to take responsibility for men’s actions (but onlySOME so it’s totally not misogyny).
And it’s not “good nature” to try to make people feel owed to you. It’s manipulative nature.
If those “poor chaps” were actually good, they would understand that them doing a favor out of their own free will doesn’t mean their friend has to like them back.
If you ask me, there should never be a family with one female adult and one male adult where it’s a male headed family.
Of course, there should never be a family with one female adult and one male adult where it’s a female headed family, because equality.
But the fact that there was never more than 3 male headed families is making me say “good”
the other stuff you’re saying stretches my suspension of disbelief, though.
Shorter budmin (or what was it gillyrose was calling him? Minnieboo?): men trying to score a free place off a woman are sad and at the expense of women. Women accepting favors from some guy who she doesn’t know is a real friend are parasites.
This makes sense.
Whenever people talk about domestic violence laws like they’re a bad thing, my mind flips to “abuse apologist”.
How do you know they weren’t ACTUALLY being abused and kicking the abusers out of their homes?
…
Dude, you have a confirmation bias the size of Texas and I do not trust your stories. On the off chance you didn’t make them up, your aforementioned confirmation bias sounds like it screwed up some stuff
(Like how you “knew” the women were exploiting domestic violence laws, and how you “know” women know when their supposed-friends are just doing favors to try to get in their pants)
If I put some “I’m 100% right” qualifier here like you did for Warren Farrel, does that mean I win, or are you the only one allowed to do “X is right and hating it does not change it” thing?
@katz, My friend’s father signs up to be listed in all of those Prestigious Directories Of Super Important People That You Should Really Be In If You Are Also Super Important, at like $50 a pop, and proudly displays them in his office. Farrell kind of reminds me of that.
You’re assuming that we hate him for no reason. That’s not the case.
@Fade _ “you have a confirmation bias the size of Texas” YES! I DO!
Budmin, that’s not something to be proud of.
@budmin
::facepalm::