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.
Oh, come on! I’m sure she looks quite dashing with hot pink 😛 Especially with the ginger bits. She does sound like a pretty kitty, though!
I don’t think I’ve seen that kind of scratching board. Do you mean the material-covered things? My Rosie has a scratching post which is just compressed cardboard covered in a carpet-like material. She’s pretty hilarious with her box though. If I’m doing anything in the kitchen, she’ll just curl up in there and supervise. She also has this tendency to just flop down on the floor in front of me while I’m walking around the house in hopes of a belly rub. It works most of the time, but I’ve almost stepped on her before while I’ve been daydreaming and not paying attention.
Anyway, sorry. I’ve hijacked the thread with kitty talk! I could easily talk about my kitty all day, sorry everyone 🙂
CassandraSays – well, you obviously dropped it as an offering, so it’s been rightly taken I’d say.
Kitty talk is not thread-hijacking! It is the true purpose of Manboobz! David just put the “misogyny. I mock it” line up there to get us chewtoys.
Here’s Mads being invisible under her pink placcie bag:
http://i.imgur.com/yBdjZqa.jpg
And here she is on her scratching board:
http://i.imgur.com/F8tMNUa.jpg
The board’s upside down in that pic, ‘cos she’s totally demolished it from the other side.
I found a song that I like to sing to my cat.
That kitty baby is so cuuute!
What about herons? Can we post cute herons?
(possibly an egret)
Definitely! 🙂
I have a repair friend. They changed the oil in my car last week. They helped me break into my house when my cat locked me out. Of course it’s a woman, as am I, so I guess now we have to be lesbians? For her sake I hope not. She could do much better than me.
I don’t usually make her meals to repay her for her help, but I let her dye my hair purple and allow her to have stories like “one time I had to break into my friend’s house when her cat locked her out.” Isn’t that enough.
Remember ladies, if a man ever does anything for you be sure to repay them with sex. But only the first guy, because otherwise you’ll be a slutty slut slut.
Maude LL | May 17, 2013 at 2:03 pm
By the way, does anyone have access to a breakdown of welfare recipients? I found a lot of academic papers arguing that the gender/welfare association was erroneous, but I can’t find clear data. (I did find some interesting papers analyzing the hatred of black women on welfare though, the racist arguments are staggering)
(unsure of how to do quotes on this, so…that is a quote above and this is not)
It’s going to depend on what we are calling welfare. There isn’t a welfare program anymore but what was welfare is now TANF (temp aid to needy families) which, as the name implies, must go to homes with children. Very few adult males get this program (about 14% from the last figures I can find http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ofa/resource/character/fy2010/fy2010-chap10-ys-final). But since women tend to have the responsibility for child rearing and are more likely to live in poverty then men, these statistics make sense. Although one of the most important figures from that study is that about half of households getting TANF are not getting it for the adults at all, only for the children. Which means that anyone making a “women vs. men” argument is not really representative of the program.
Now, if we are going to include other social programs like SSI/disability in the analysis of “welfare” recipients you’re going to start seeing more gender parity. In fact, for SSI payments for people under 18 the rate of men/boys is much higher than women/girls (http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/chartbooks/fast_facts/2012/fast_facts12.html). Although it’s amazing the number of people who rant against TANF and food stamps while living off SSI/disability. I won’t get into the validity of their arguments except to note that they do exist.
lowquacks: Looks like a Great Blue Heron (and egrets are a type of Heron). Even if I’m wrong about species, it’s definitely a heron of some sort.
@Melissa Becker
Blockquotes are [blockquote] text [/blockquote] but with < instead of [
or you could just use “text” cuz its easier, and still clear.
^and that (plus this) is Marie, I can’t figure out how to stop posting with my dang Gravatar name…
The complete mystery to me is the notion that the only relationships available between men and women are either sexual or friendship leading to sex, preferably today.
Haven’t these people ever observed blokes who like to behave like everyone’s big brother? One thing my 20+ daughter surprised me with one day that she’d never told me before when she was sort-of-grumbling about the two blokes who were her flat mates – all her life she’d wanted an older brother and now she had two. I fully believe that it’s *entirely* possible that she may not be the only person among the 7 billion of us who’s had a secret desire for a brother or sister, aunt or uncle, cousin boy or girl, older or younger, just one or a whole handful. And wholeheartedly throw themselves into the nearest possible fac simile when suitable people come into their lives. Some of these people might be men !!! And they like to treat some women as the “missing” big sister / aunt / little sister / cousin they’d been wanting for years.
As for helping people out. Am I the only one in 7 billion who’s always had at least one man in my circle of friends or workmates who is eager to demonstrate his (real) expertise with cars or bricklaying or DIY of various kinds? They’ll do such things for anyone and everyone and their main reward seems to be to take, or create, every possible chance to repeat, endlessly, how wonderfully well they did [whatever it was] for weeks after. Years after if you give them a couple of drinks. If there are two or more of them in a group, a BBQ turns into a competitive bragging session about little old grandmothers’ cars, neighbours’ gutters, cousins’ computers – and how pleased and grateful all these people are for the obvious sterling qualities of these paragons of manly virtues.
Or do these people really not live life as I understand it.
The funniest thing about this is that the “repair friend” thing is in some guys’ head. I’ve run into guys who totally expect to get paid in sex if they help a woman with anything. They also get mad when women wise up to that fact and stop asking for help, because “they like to feel needed”. It never occurs to them that women aren’t responsible for the ongoing sex calculator that exists only in their heads. When they tell friends about why they no longer help the woman, it’s usually some variation of “she was taking advantage of me”, said in a way to make the woman sound like a manipulative asshole. So if she doesn’t put out for all of these favors, no one should be her friend.
I know it may sound oddly specific, but I’ve run into this type of guy often enough – who, of course have to share this “wimmin amirite?” story with me – that I only trust female friends or a boyfriend to help me with anything. I can tell you, though, they’ve never used the term “repair friend” – only because, I think, they can get more sympathy points with “take advantage of me”. The sad part is other guys nod along and go “I know what you mean”. It’s also kinda sad because they do have female friends that are genuinely friends. You’d think they’d get it but they don’t.
Welcome back, Marie! Yay for new computers!
CassandraSays:
That’s what I always thought too…that, or a dinner at a decent restaurant, a nice gift, something like that depending on your friend’s individual taste. To think all this time I should have been paying them with sex.
But only the male friends, right? I mean, Farrell does seem to imply that women can’t be repair friends.* What about lesbians though? Is it only men who deserve to get paid in sex, or is it anyone who is attracted to women? These rules are so confusing to me with my poor feeble lady brain.
*I have also never in my life heard anyone refer to someone as a “repair friend” or anything similar. I have however heard many women complain about incompetent men who try to insist on “helping” a woman with repairs she is fully capable of, and complained about that myself.
AK: The other situation is even more amusing to ponder. If a gay man picks up Farrell after the latter’s car breaks down on the highway, does Farrell owe him sex? I think this is a fair question that should be asked of him the next time the filthy fuckpuke manages to wrangle an invitation to a college campus.
When doing protection exercises with dogs, the person who plays “the bad guy” is almost always a man, while quite a lot of the people who compete in Swedish protection with their dogs are women. If the dog draws blood from “the bad guy” the dog’s mummy will typically buy him a bottle of whisky for compensation.
But maybe we’ve been doing it wrong all along. Maybe these poor men has been yearning for SEX in compensation all the time!
Telling men not to be human dish rags is not misogyny, it’s self preservation. These poor men are foolishly placing themselves in a position to be exploited. I’ve seen 1st hand what Mr. Farrell is talking about and it aint pretty.
So their exploitation lies in the fact that they aren’t getting sex in return? Boo-fucking-hoo.
@budmin
Um, if these guys are getting so ripped off by not getting paid in sex for helping out friends, why don’t they just say so? Just be like “Sure, I’ll fix your shower, if you’ll have sex with me after.” Why are women supposed to read men’s minds to find out their male friends consider them to be prostitutes?
Really, how fucking terrible does your opinion of men have to be to think:
1. Men think all women are prostitutes who can be paid in services for sex.
2. Men are unable to figure out that fixing things is not going to result in payment of sex.
budmin: Not. The only ones “exploiting” these men are themselves, every time they attempt to exploit women fails. If they weren’t misogynistic, entitled twits in the first place, they wouldn’t be providing aid in a only-in-their-heads pact for sex.
@AK
😀 Glad to have gotten back.
@budmin
Like, dude, you just admitted they were doing it themselves. If they want sex in return for favors they should use their words. That’s what grown-ups do.
Okay, hopefully I’ve finally got this sticking to my manboobz name now…
Look, man, no one makes men offer their “help”, that’s all on them. If I say “I’ll help you move, dude” to my friend and then expect to be paid in sex afterwards, why didn’t I say that up front? It’s a manipulative strategy to try to get women to feel owed for something that was seemingly given for free.
If you don’t wanna see first hand what farrel is talking about, don’t offer your “help” just to try to make someone feel obligated to have sex with you. It’s not exploitation, it’s you being a manipulative dick.