Female Friendzone?

[Combustion Kevin]

hoooh boy! a friendzone thread! ain't that a blast from the past!

here's some simple ground rules:
-keep communication clear and simple
-good friends can still go either way on the romantic scale, people are not static beings
-romantic interest does not equal sex, asexuals also have romantic tendencies and may seek compagnionship in the form of a relationship, reducing the relationship to just sex has some very unfortunate implications.

and last but not least,

-Screw gender-roles, Fortune favors the audacious.

 

[DoPo]

The "friendzone" does not exist

Of course it does. The idea that women would use there sexual cashe` to get what they want, without having to actually commit to what they see as an inferior male. An honestly thats what women want, because as soon as men stop aying attention, those same women will inevitably be the ones making the "where have all the good men gone" statements, when no man shows her any sort of secual interest.

This isn't news, this is a well established, long standing tradition with attractive women.

I don't think that definition of "friendzone" conforms to any other definition I've heard. It isn't described as a manipulation technique but rather relationship blocking one. One wants to hook up, the other person goes "sorry - friendship only". Manipulation doesn't really fit there.

 

[AlexWinter]

-snip-

I'd say it's about 50/50 or 40/60 women/men.

Why? Well all the girls I've friendzoned I've slept with anyway so I doubt they think of it as being friendzoned.

Whereas guys complain to no end.

Also I think girls are more likely to blame themselves for the lack of attraction whereas guys like to blame everything else.

 

[Jenvas1306]

I first became friends with my current bf and then it evolved, so I dont think this 'friendzone' exists.
If you cant value her/him just as a friend, if its just worth t if you get sex out of it, then you migzht be better off with a hooker or a onenightstand.

and this:

-snip-

I'd say it's about 50/50 or 40/60 women/men.

Why? Well all the girls I've friendzoned I've slept with anyway so I doubt they think of it as being friendzoned.

Whereas guys complain to no end.

Also I think girls are more likely to blame themselves for the lack of attraction whereas guys like to blame everything else.

yep, men would probably rather do that, but if you involve sex like that you probably arent very concerned about being friends, so its not quite a friendzone.

 

[manic_depressive13]

Perhaps this will help you understand why everyone thinks that "a guy bring your friend = backstabber son of a *****"

Aww, you ninja'd me.
Well then I shall just take my video elsewhere...

OT:
I think she is making a good point about "nice guys" and the "friend zone" etc., so her video is definitely worth a look.

To address the main anecdote in that video, both people's behaviour was completely shocking and unacceptable. Firstly, the way he behaved towards her, given that she was a colleague, was completely unprofessional, unfair to himself and unfair to the other workers. I am surprised they weren't both fired by the end. The man for blatant favouritism and calling her a ****, the woman for not doing her own fucking work.

Secondly, his behaviour was completely cowardly. Rather than try to reason with the woman and explain to her his feelings, and why he thought her boyfriend was a bad person, he preferred to try to "win" her by being nice to her, despite apparently having no faith in her intelligence or judgement of character. They were both emotionally manipulative towards each other, the man for not being honest about his intentions to steal the woman from her boyfriend, and the woman for taking advantage of this fact. To try to paint the woman as the bad guy, and the man as a poor misguided fellow who was hard done by, is completely unfair. They were both cowardly and manipulative. The woman in the vlog even asks (paraphrased) "Why shouldn't he be allowed to complain about the way she was treating him?" Oh I don't know, maybe because he fucking put himself in that situation? If he didn't like the way she was treating him he should have stopped bending over backwards for her. Instead of taking this woman's personality into account and realising that she was a manipulative user he treated her like an object. They deserved each other.

Furthermore, what the fuck was that nonsense about women claiming they want a submissive man who exalts them and is always supportive? No one wants that. I don't know any feminists who claim to want to date a doormat who places them on a pedestal, so the suggestion that feminists demonise Nice Guys because of cognitive dissonance is completely ridiculous.

Finally, that's a loaded example. The Nice Guy stereotype is that these people then complain about the object of their affections, saying how unfair it is that they are treated like shit even after they acted as a doormat for that person. That is definitely entitlement because a normal person would walk away, not sit there slavering after that person, and then insulting them behind their backs for not making the "right" choices. People with healthy perceptions of the opposite sex don't behave that way. If those people saw the objects of their affections as human beings instead of "A wo(man)" they wouldn't get roped into this destructive behaviour under the delusional belief that behaving a certain way will win them the wo(man), regardless of who that person is on an individual level.

The same goes for women. I've heard a few women claiming that men only go after bimbos, that at the end of the day they just want sex, blah blah blah. Well no, you're just a ridiculously poor judge of character who pursues certain kinds of unpleasant people, then tries to compensate for their personal failings with sexist attitudes.

 

[ShiningAmber]

I had a guy I liked that I was interested in. I told him and turned out he wasn't interested.

No, I don't consider myself friend zoned. We're friends. He just wasn't attracted to me that way. How can I be mad at someone for that?

Just because we're 'nice' to each other doesn't entitle us to anything. I think girls have a better understanding of the whole ordeal with this BS of friendzoning.

 

[Angie7F]

I am not totally sure, but I have a feeling that women tend to get less friend zoned because guys will just sleep with women for the sake of it, where as women try to be proper but dont have the guts to turn a guy down and therefore results in friend zoning.
Not sure though.
I see more girls complaining about how the guy wants to have sex but doesnt want to be in a relationship, but never friend zoned.

 

[Eleuthera]

I am not totally sure, but I have a feeling that women tend to get less friend zoned because guys will just sleep with women for the sake of it, where as women try to be proper but dont have the guts to turn a guy down and therefore results in friend zoning.
Not sure though.
I see more girls complaining about how the guy wants to have sex but doesnt want to be in a relationship, but never friend zoned.

This actually made me wonder. Is there any difference between a girl/woman who keeps sleeping with a guy hoping for him to change his mind and accept the relationship. And the guy who keeps being nice/being there/being friendzoned in the hope for the same?

 

[funkyjiveturkey]

This:

eh guys are usually more open/straight forward

Is a heck of a lot more accurate than this:

The friendzone is something you do to yourself. Usually when you pretend to care about someone as a friend so you can get in their pants.

TL;DR: Teenage guys are idiots when it comes to women. They need to be told things honestly and preferably in monosyllabic terms, not couched in innuendo in the hopes of not hurting their feelings.

i find this to be very true. throughout highschool this happened to me several times, especially because i didn't have an actual girlfriend until the last month or so of my highschool career. but in retrospect i was so not fucking slick, my attempts to get with a girl were so obvious it was just embarasing. but even when i just wanted freindship from a girl they would assume im trying to get in their pants, i guess cuz of how bad i was at this stuff. it was especially not helped by the fact that i never (and still to some degree) had any idea how to talk to women.

in times like this i would just flat out state how i felt, or even ask if they had any interest in talking to me at all (since i kept getting a lot of indirectly bad signals). teenage guys are bad for this, and teenage girls are bad at leading on because of the whole "let them down gently" thing. it's not really worse on any one side than the other, but in terms of the friendzone being worse for men than women i think it is definitely worse for men. it's easier for a woman to have plutonic love for man than it is vice versa, although time is a strange mistress and things will usually develop anyway.

i think the friendzone is not always a bad thing, in my case the friendzone was more of a reservation spot. my girlfriend said although we were good friends for many years, she was always waiting for the right time to be with me (she went through some weird phases when we were friends and apparently didnt want me to be a part of). but after a few bad boyfriends and twists and turns, we ended up together and have never been happier.

the friendzone is gender mutual, but tends to be harder on men than women. sometimes it is a mutually good thing that means the best end for you both.

 

[MetalMagpie]

I'm a woman with almost entirely male friends. So I've certainly had friends that I've fancied. The ones I really fancied, I started flirting with. The ones that flirted back turned into flings/relationships. The ones that showed no interest, I stayed just friends with.

I don't really see what the big deal is about having a friend you think is attractive, but who (for whatever reason) you're not going to end up in a relationship with. Unless, of course, the only reason you're hanging around with them is because you hope to sleep with them. In which case you should probably just give up and move on. Personally, I have no problem with eye-candy friends.

Possible tip for the guys: In my experience, if I don't fancy a guy after a couple of hours of good conversation (i.e. long enough to get a first impression how smart/funny he is) then he's not my type. So if we have had enough time to become actual friends, and I'm still not responding to flirting, then I just don't fancy you!

Attraction happens (or doesn't) in the earliest stages of getting to know someone. Friendship takes longer.

(I will admit to being guilty of using the "you're too much like a brother to me" as an excuse when trying to let a friend down gently. I have also used "it's not you, it's me" when breaking up with a guy. So it's possible I'm an Evil *****, but I prefer "Not Good At Relationships".)

 

[PhreakyDee]

Goddamnit I hate this "friend zone" bullshit about it being about getting into someone's pants. FUCKING STOP ASSUMING THAT.

Yes, that is the case sometimes, but to just unequivocally make that statement is a gross misrepresentation of the entire issue. A friend zone can be anything and it is indeed a legit problem for some people.


As for the topic, yes. Girls get friend zoned all the time. Half the albums Taylor Swift puts out addresses that. It's just not as big of an issue for them normally because they don't have to go through the "first move" stuff. And there is always another guy waiting in reserve who would happily take her. So more often than not, they can settle instead of being outright rejected.

And I say this as a social psychology major.

"And there is always a different guy waiting in reserve" excuse me? That is as true for males as it is for females. If there really is some reserve sitting and waiting, he/she is most likely to never be noticed by the "friendzoned" because they are still stuck with the "friendzoner".

And yes, friendzone is indeed something you do to yourself. I was close to being completely friendzoned, but after actually understanding that he was never gonna go anywhere with our "friendship" igot pissed, raged about him, cried a lot and then i moved on. Yes i still remember him, but i am not reminded constantly of how much i would like to be with him and getting crushed everytime i am "just one of the guys".

So, yes . It happens to women, but i guess we are just not as loud about it. Mostly because we feel it as a horrible defeat and we do not like to dwell in those with all the feelin and period stuff we also have to focus on...

 

[senordesol]

I can easily see (and have seen) both males and females in the 'friendzone'. Be it a problem with your looks, social graces, or confidence; it's real fucking easy to land yourself there and stick.

I wouldn't say that's a "friendzone", I'd say that's just an outright lack of confidence.

I don't understand why people get so upset when they're rejected, though. Surely the other person is doing you a favour? They're saying "I'm sorry, I don't like you enough to date you" - and isn't that honesty better than being in a relationship based on lies, or where one party is much more invested in the relationship than the other?

I'm with the side that believes the "friendzone" is a myth people created so they don't have to accept that the girl/boy of their dreams just isn't into them.

A lack of confidence can result in being 'friendzoned'. Of course, the condition could use defining (at least on my end).

The 'Friendzone', I believe, if invoked truly (rather than over-dramatically as it often is) is a type depressive state (i.e. it can only be imposed on one's self, not by anyone else). It stems from either the knowledge or suspicion that no one wants to be with you, not even people who like spending time with you -- a variation on 'Forever Alone', or Unrequited Love, if you will.

The idea here being that if you have NO prospects, that no one of the opposite sex seems to want to have anything to do with you... and then 'She' has to come along -- She, who seems to like everything you like, who wants to talk about the things you want to talk about, who has no problem with your friends or interests. This might be the first time anyone has taken an honest-to-goodness interest in you and, wouldn't you know it, you start to develop feelings for her. Now imagine how emotionally crushing it is to know (either for a fact or in your heart) that she does not and will not ever feel the same way about you. Imagine the boiling resentment that bubbles up everytime she moans about how she can't find a 'nice guy' or a guy 'more like you'.

You can't tell me that state of being doesn't exist. I've lived it. And you can't tell me that it amounts to nothing more than simple 'rejection'. Rejection, if anything, is precisely what you're used to at that point. It's not a matter of taking a 'no' and moving on. There's nothing to move on to.

Now is any of this fair to your love interest? Nope! You're putting her on a pedastal, and elevating her power over your mental state in a fashion she never asked for! But, unfair as it is, the emotional investment and the depression that comes with it is real. Unfair and illogical though it may be, it is real. Because it has less to do with the person herself and more to do with the knowledge that you are inadequate. Undesireable. Good for nothing more than 'Friendship'. If this were Notre Dame, your name would be Quasimodo. That is the friendzone.

 

[FancyNick]

There seems to be some different notions on the definition of friendzone on here . As I see it, it's when you have a friend you fancy, Man/Woman/Whatever, and you ask them out and they reject you but still want to be friends. You'll still be friends but you know you'll never be anything more than that. And that's the friendzone, you will always be a friend in your relationship with this individual who you had/have feelings for.

OT: I am sure some girls have been friendzoned. There are bound to be men some where who have more than one girl who likes him. You can't pick everyone so someone is bound to be left out.

 

[Combustion Kevin]

Now is any of this fair to your love interest? Nope! You're putting her on a pedastal, and elevating her power over your mental state in a fashion she never asked for! But, unfair as it is, the emotional investment and the depression that comes with it is real. Unfair and illogical though it may be, it is real. Because it has less to do with the person herself and more to do with the knowledge that you are inadequate. Undesireable. Good for nothing more than 'Friendship'. If this were Notre Dame, your name would be Quasimodo. That is the friendzone.

yeah... been there, sometimes still am, but I've grown to get some perspective and not hold grudges, heck, I begrudge myself the most if anyone.

also, The Hunchback of Notre Dame is an awesome film, love you for that referance.

Sadly, I don't even really have any advice how to deal with it either, I myself try to distract myself in work or games but saying that out loud now doesn't really give me any consolidation, I realise.
maybe try growing a beard and pretend I don't care wether I'm single, that could help, the world needs more beards anyway.

Not helping is that a man always has to "prove himself", show yourself worthy of someone's affection in this scenario, and when they don't fancy you... well, it's your fault obviously, you fell short.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Friend zone happens cos you take to long to ask the girl out. After time you then worry if you did ask her out would you lose her as a friend? It becomes complicated. I think woman could leave hints if they like the guy but sometimes those signs are not obvious or not specific enough for guys to see them as a definite yes.

But then friends with women are fine and can lead you to meet their friends. Friend zone itself isnt a real thing, its a matter of choice or just not acting when you should of. As a person you chose whether to ask the girl out or not. If you dont then your friends.

 

[trollnystan]

I've fancied friends before but I've never considered myself as being in "the friendzone".
Either I asked them out and they said yes/no or I said nothing and was content with being friends.

The friendzone is something you do to yourself. Usually when you pretend to care about someone as a friend so you can get in their pants.

I don't think I've ever met a girl who had friend zoned themselves, I'm sure it happens though.

What she said. I have fancied friends and never said anything. This doesn't mean they "friendzoned" me, it means I decided I didn't want to risk being rejected - which I would have been because I knew their types and I was NOT it - and wanted to keep their friendship because that was more important to me than a hypothetical chance to get in their pants.

I'd also like to point to this video because it's a little relevant (but really I just like it):

 

[BrotherRool]

In films there's always a chick in the friendzone, except by the end of the film she always leaves it because the rule of Hollywood is, guys have to get laid in every film