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.
Gender norms can go to hell in a very frilly baby blue basket!
Peacocking, urgh. Like peacocks always walk around feathers in the air! (Also, ever seen a white peacock? Their understated elegance is beautiful.)
Don’t mind me, I’m just sitting on a bench.
First time I saw a white peacock it was stuffed, and never having heard of them before, I wondered why on earth anyone would dye a peacock. Then I saw a live one.
Last time I saw a peacock (of the usual colour) was on Phillip Island last year. He was like a camera-hogging model, I swear – preening around on a big tree stump while people took his photo. No peahens in sight, I might add. 🙂
I love seeing men dressed beautifully and outside the jeans-shirt-jacket-suit-whatever norm (Argenti, you getting Fashion Conversation Deja Vu too?) but if they’re arseholes like PUAs, then all the window dressing in the world isn’t going to help.
Beautiful!
Makes me think the white peacock I saw needed to take a bath. He was more ecru verging on beige. :/
Kitteh — you mean the one we should just go to the corner of shame forever for? Yes.
I think it was that one! Or did we have a separate lengthy talk about 17th century fashion? ::brain fade::
Weaning yourself off expressions like “bat-shit crazy”.
Go with ludicrously funny versions like “mad as a box of frogs” as substitutes to start with. You don’t have to change the pattern of speaking/thinking but it distinctly softens the impact. The more often you do that, the more you abandon the worst expressions and the more likely you are to find another way to convey your meaning. And when you have a slip of the tongue later, you’re more likely to go with the funny-but-offensive rather than the unambiguously-offensive. Which has to be a plus.
A box of frogs?
Does that mean they’re [drumroll] Schrodinger’s Frogs?
Oh hardy hah, hah. Never thought of that.
I’ve mainly seen it used online to describe people like the deeply weird Lord Monckton and the like. I confess I use it myself because it both does the job and is light-hearted. And I find it really funny.
Much like converting the euphemisms for “stupid” from ‘a sandwich short of a picnic’ to “a couple of kangaroos short of a national park”. At its core, it’s still a reference to stupid, but people having to think it through, then laugh, then realise that it may not be super nice seriously blunts the impact.
It embarrasses me hugely that Monckton is one of my ancestral names. I really, really hope we’re not related to that twit.
I rather like the “couple of sandwiches short of a picnic” variations, I must admit. I’m a bit wary of “some kangaroos loose in the top paddock” because it suggests “mad” rather than “stupid”. Stupid I have no trouble with, because characters like MRAs are stupid.
Then there’s things like “couldn’t organise a fart in a beanbag/pissup in a brewery” variations, which seem very applicable to the Human Rights Movement where nobody turns up to their meetings except the three organisers …
I’ve yet to find a suitably vitriolic way to describe Tony Abbott, though.
We’re into surpassing human understanding territory with Tony Abbott.
Partly because the mind whirls from the lycra to the latest silliness to the budgie smugglers to the running-for-the-exits-to-avoid-the-vote and there’s _nothing_ to fix on as a *this* is the right word for the man as a whole.
Awww. I’ve got ABC24 on. Mostly about Oklahoma, but a baby white rhino at Dubbo zoo!
Piccies somewhere soon I expect.
Now that I’ve slept off most of the drunkenness (what, me write drunk? Whatever are you implying?) and got over the personal stuff I was going through yesterday, I should elaborate a bit on my ramblings.
What I meant was that in the minds of the Nice GuysTM (not me, that is), they DO expect a relationship to include sex. Their strange women-on-pedestals worldview seems to be based on some very specific, and very false, beliefs about chivalry, an odd idea of all women as sex-bad, romantic relationship-good* creatures from Venus, and yes, very wonky ideas about friendship. More than once have I heard the old “I want a girlfriend who is also my best friend” line. For these guys, friendships with women are entirely based on finding a potential romantic relationship. Yet they do not seem to grasp that in order to be friends with someone, you have to treat them as friends, not some transaction automatons. Although to be fair, it fits oddly well with their libertarian views of everything being ruled by the market. Which is about as good an idea as everything being ruled by a bunch of rich white dudes. Wait…
In real life, relationships aren’t that simple. Hell, people aren’t simple. Why would their relationships be? There is nothing wrong with wanting to find true love, but as Kittehserf put it, it’s about finding the person you want that relationship with, not about grabbing the TWUE WUV out of the ether and falling in love with the nearest person, usually the Nice GuyTM who happens to be there, well, all the time. Why do I get the feeling these guys would be okay with using love potions if those things really existed?
Btw, this isn’t the first time my attempt to put myself in the mindset of entitled jerks gets misinterpreted, since me good English at no.
*How else would you explain the insistence of Nice GuysTM that they’re not as bad as the so-called alphas because they want to love and hold a woman for the rest of her life, not just have casual sex (with which they would “defile” an innocent woman who’s only looking for TWUE WUV)? Yet I bet they would never be content with a platonic relationship. Hmm…
Blargh, now I feel sick. Note to self: Do not attempt to think like a Nice GuyTM after a night of heavy drinking.
RadicalParrot – it’s like they think everyone’s interchangable, isn’t it? That people have entirely different personalities seems too much for them to comprehend. They can’t grasp that someone is attracted to one person and not another. Even their whining about alpha assholes shows they don’t get it; there is something in the looks or personality of the guy (probably including that he is not, in fact, an asshole) that’s attractive to another person/people. And it’s not just that he’s cutting out the NiceGuyTM: if someone’s attracted to him and wants an exclusive relationship it can mean that nobody else is appealing – including other alleged alpha assholes.
Hmm, you had trouble writing clearly after drinking, what the devil is my excuse? 😛
I don’t know about you, but I prefer a hatful of cats…
Individuality: even if the NiceGuyTM was actually a nice guy, it doesn’t mean he’s sexually or romantically attractive to any given woman.
I’ve known plenty of good blokes over the years, most of ’em happily paired at some time or another, all of them obviously attractive to their partner(s) – but they weren’t attractive to me (nor me to them, fortunately). Unique human beings, how do they work?
Yeah but it’s devilish difficult to comb the fur out of your hair afterward.
@ Kittehserf: Exactly. That’s why they get so angry when their alleged “friend” falls for someone else: “But I was here the whole time and you didn’t fall in love with me! How can you be so meeeeaaan?” It’s like dating is a game of calling dibs to these guys.
Let’s not even go to their ideas about cheating. A woman is naturally supposed to only have eyes for her man, but the man gets to oogle at all the women he wants because biology.
Blauugh, I did it again. I’ll be in the bathroom, don’t mind the barfing noises.
True… but totes worth it!
Either that or “I’m just browsing.” Because, y’know, women are soup.
::hands RadicalParrot face washer and mouth rinse::
I realise that fun is not a relevant concept for radical parrot right now (more like sick as a …).
But isn’t fun the thing that’s really missing from these poor blokes view of women and relationships and the world generally. I think they get the idea of deep and lasting joy from a committed relationship. (OK, I don’t really but something serious and im.port.ant. anyway.)
Fun? Does anyone get a vibe of light hearted fun. Whether it’s the kind of uncommitted fun nights out with groups of friends. Or the hysterical fun of favourite comedy films shared with a kindred spirit. Or …. the collapse with laughter during far too enthusiastic sex with a partner where someone’s slipping off the bed/ couch/ table and the laughter itself lands both of you on the floor or someone’s wedged between furniture and wall – which provokes even more laughter. None of which detracts from a wildly passionate sex life because committed partners generally have a lot more sex than singles, especially in those first few months or years. The occasional comedy gold moments are yet more ties that bind people into those shared secret smiles – years later.
Would laughter during sex give these blokes a problem do you think?
::standing ovation for mildlymagnificent::
YES!
This is the sort of thing they don’t seem to get at all, and like you said, not just in a sexual relationship (I don’t want to call their notions of relationships “romantic” because ewww, romance is better’n that) but in any relationships.
They talk about children as things they get possessive about or discard according to how they want to punish the woman involved, and which which Man as Martyr hat they’re wearing at the time. Can anyone imagine them taking pleasure in their kids as kids? Teaching them to read* or play games or whatever? Enjoying their company?
Ditto sexual relationships: the serious and important stuff they seem to want is ego stroking, sex on demand, and a domestic slave who is utterly dependent on them but somehow doesn’t spend any of the manly man’s money on trivialities like food**. And she has to be a Hote Babe who never ages or changes in any way, of course.
I can’t even imagine these guys having friends. Oh, fellow misogynists in their little wankfest, but not actual friends who hang out and have fun.
I love your description of the falling-out-of-bed-laughing stuff, btw. It so describes the sort of nonsense Louis and I get up to (garden swing chair: bad idea). Or the non-sexy stuff where you’re just laughing with (and, okay, at) each other – those are the memories of love, the comedy gold, the ties that bind, as you said.
Can you imagine these guys getting knocked over by a daft dog practising his skating skills, falling flat on his back and laughing his head off about it once he’d got his breath back? I can’t. I can’t imagine them laughing at themselves in any circumstances.
Thank Ceiling Cat for men who really do know about love and fun and laughter!
*given the illiteracy among MRAs, it’s probably just as well
**we won’t even mention Scented Fucking Candles
Oh – forgot to answer your question: “Would laughter during sex give these blokes a problem do you think?”
Boner-wilting, I would think.
::laughs evilly::
@Radical Parrot:
Someone said that to me pretty much word-for-word once. He threw in some “you’re not like those vapid, slutty other girls!” misogyny, too, and tried to use that to guilt me as well — see, because if I didn’t date him he would be forced to be alone, since other women couldn’t ever be good enough for his misogynistic ass.
The interesting thing about that is it shows that he could understand rejecting someone on the basis of not being interested in them, as long as he was the one doing it. After all, he would supposedly have rejected any woman who showed an interest in him for the rest of his life* (you know, because icky girl cooties). But a woman rejecting him? After he’d already invested time and energy into being her “friend”? Apparently that was inexplicable.
*which I seriously doubt but w/e
Funny that you mention this. It’s been my experience too, but most men I’ve spoken to about it are of the opinion that a committed relationship means the death of your sex life, even those who are in committed relationships, and take the “ah, little boy with no experience of the word” attitude when I express doubt.
Maybe it’s like kittehs says and their idea of a healthy sex life is hot and cold running sex on tap? I wonder if they understand what that means? Because I’ve had sex on tap, and it is exhausting.