Lol Friend-zone

[RandV80]

Well... this made me laugh a bit.

Yep, friendzoning is not A Thing, and I'm tired of people who pretend it is.
And it makes me a little sad that so many guys can't value females as friends.

Still, people have been less whiny about it on here recently, so this is a little out of the blue, but it's funny.
http://www.doctornerdlove.com/2012/12/problem-nice-guys/
More on that there.

That was posted on here wasn't it? I think I recall reading it, though i didn't comment at the time. Seemed like a real bitchy argument to me... I'm sure the whole 'friend zone' thing can go down in a number of different ways, yet this article frames the male side in the worst possible way building a strawman that absolves the female side from any responsibility or guilt.

To make a counter point example of a more innocent form of friend zoning where neither side is really 'bad', the TV show Stargate Universe has a classic example. Take a socially awkward young adult male on one side and an attractive young adult female on the other. Normally the two would never cross paths let alone interact, but through circumstances they find themselves working together. This could be a college assignment, office workplace, trapped on an ancient spaceship billions of light years from earth, or whatever. The natural occurrence is for the attractive female to come to appreciate the awkward male for his support and friendship but doesn't harbour any romantic feelings. The awkward male having a complete lack of women in his life will obviously start crushing on the one he's with now simply because he actually gets to spend time with her, but lacks the experience and knowledge in how to take it any further. Also being the only female interaction he really has he likely becomes terrified of messing things up and losing it. For a normal guy you take a swing and if you miss there's always someone else out there, but for socially awkward guy while it may not be correct to him it may seem like this could be his only chance. Overall the fault is more on the awkward male side here but you can't really blame him because you don't know the circumstances that lead to him being socially awkward. Perhaps he didn't quite fit in through public school, which lead to a lot of bullying and an overall stunting of his social development. Either way though using the example of Eli and Chloe neither of them are deserving of any sort of character attack or shaming.

Back to the topic at hand though... what I'm wondering though is this whole 'friend zone' or anti 'nice guy' bit seems to get played out a lot on the internet these days, but just how common of an occurrence is this anyways? I mean people make all these stereotypes but personally I've never known anyone that really fits the description. Almost seems to me like people are arguing and getting angry over a whole bunch of strawmen.

It seems like guys started it by complaining against women being pro-douche bag (of the stereotypical variety), and women plus the guys others are labeling as douche bags have started pushing back by attacking this 'nice-guy' archetype. It all seems pretty damn silly to me.

 

[Phasmal]

So it's a problem because it implies that person B is doing this deliberately and maliciously?

Thing is, I still don't see how that's misogynistic, person A is just understandably annoyed at this girl, and while it's not her fault either, she can't help if she doesn't like him in that way, I don't think you can really read hatred of women into some guy who just got rejected's anger at the girl he likes.

If it's the whole 'all women are evil and will only go out with douchebags!' mentality that makes people label the friendzone as a misogynist thing then yeah I understand that's stupid but there's no logic to thinking everyone who uses the term friendzone thinks that. And tbh I can understand partially where they're coming from anyway; confidence is generally more likely to get you a girlfriend than just being nice in itself, which is generally why the 'douchebags' (as well as some genuinely nice confident guys, of course) tend to end up getting all the girls.

I'll stop rambling now.

Yeah, that's why it pisses me off. It implies it's something the person who doesn't feel the same has done to the person who has the feelings.

I didn't say it was misogynistic. Can't help you there.
Bitter guys who have been friendzoned often can be, but that's just because they are sad about being rejected.

 

[In Search of Username]

So it's a problem because it implies that person B is doing this deliberately and maliciously?

Thing is, I still don't see how that's misogynistic, person A is just understandably annoyed at this girl, and while it's not her fault either, she can't help if she doesn't like him in that way, I don't think you can really read hatred of women into some guy who just got rejected's anger at the girl he likes.

If it's the whole 'all women are evil and will only go out with douchebags!' mentality that makes people label the friendzone as a misogynist thing then yeah I understand that's stupid but there's no logic to thinking everyone who uses the term friendzone thinks that. And tbh I can understand partially where they're coming from anyway; confidence is generally more likely to get you a girlfriend than just being nice in itself, which is generally why the 'douchebags' (as well as some genuinely nice confident guys, of course) tend to end up getting all the girls.

I'll stop rambling now.

Yeah, that's why it pisses me off. It implies it's something the person who doesn't feel the same has done to the person who has the feelings.

I didn't say it was misogynistic. Can't help you there.
Bitter guys who have been friendzoned often can be, but that's just because they are sad about being rejected.

Ah fair enough, I was talking to the thread in general more than you specifically.

 

[Daveman]

Well that was a rollercoaster of a reading experience. Amazing.

Anyway, upon getting more female friends now I'm almost out of university I have gradually grown out of this notion. You being friends with a girl isn't going to reduce your odds of getting off with her, if anything you're more likely to have a chance. No guarantees though...

I suppose it's also because I really only want a proper relationship I can only see myself going out with a friend which is why in the past I've only fancied girls that were my friends and hence why the idea of the friendzone developed. The idea of going straight from not knowing somebody to dating seems retarded to me if you want to find love, I mean no wonder people will get in shitloads of relationships then, better to make friends first and then decide if you're attracted to them.

Maybe it helps that I'm naturally flirtatious with all my friends and our banter can be construed as negging. LOL.

 

[Smolderin]

Well if there is one thing this thread is good for, it's making me laugh with all the comments. I tried reading it, I really did, then all of a sudden I got into the part about Smurfs and Dicks...and possibly Smurf dicks and I was like, "Uhh....Nope". I then proceeded to laugh at some of things in the comments. Thank your OP for bringing a smile to my face for a few seconds.

 

[zzkill]

This was actually funny up to a point. From that point it began with lengthy explanations and it bored me to hell and back, but oh well, I read something today, so lets be happy about it.

 

[Lt._nefarious]

Well- Ow! Fuck! Cut myself on the keyboard... How is that even possible?! Damn Edges...

Anyhow... My brain hurts... So, I'm probably the wrong person to try and add to this because a) most conversations with gals my own age are hostile or just plain dumb and b) I have never been freinds with a gal on account of all the gals I think are nice people being in their 30's or 40's (I'm 16) or the ones that are my age being way too... Or rather I'm scared to talk to them... Never the less: I shall add to the topic...

Sooo... What about gay guys or lesbians? Can they get "friend zoned" I don't see why not. What about women? Surely a woman could see a dude they desperately want to... Er... Be on top of(?), befreind them in the hope to see penis but never do? Or am I just crazy?

 

[Cheesepower5]

Surely the zone is just supposed to describe a situation in which one person just wants to be friends and the other wants a relationship.

I genuinely don't understand when people say the friendzone is a misogynistic idea. Like, I hate misogyny, but when I see someone talking about being friendzoned I do not see someone who hates women, I see someone who is sad to have been rejected, and I feel sorry for them. Someone explain this to me better than that dickish article at the top did?

Yeah, but that's not how it's phrased, is it.
Ok, for simplicity, we will go with person A being the one who wants a relationship and person B being the one who doesn't.

It's phrased as `Person B put me in the friend-zone!`.
But they didn't.
Person B has being going on their merry way assuming they were friends, and found out that the friendship was a way for person A to try and get invited to person B's pants-party.
When person B responds that they do not want a sexual relationship with A, they are not putting them anywhere. They are rejecting them.

It's like if you and I were having chocolate and you also wanted to split a portion of grapes.
You say `do you want some grapes?`
and I'm all `no`.
I haven't put you in the chocolate-zone.
I have just denied an advancement on the snacktimes.
I dont like grapes.

And that's a decent enough explanation for why you don't like the friend zone fad. But why throw all this support to the guy who spews hateful shit about guys who are probably pretty decent, and just feeling rejected? I'd guess the guys being as assholish as he is about (and plenty of others) numbers about as few. Would such a hateful rant about something you don't support not just make you angry?

I mean, if you really don't take issue with it, but still aren't being an asshole directly, that's fine. I'm probably guilty of that too. I don't disagree with this article's point, but the author sounds like a complete douche. I'm just not liking it.

 

[Darken12]

You. I like you. You're going places.

Thank you, kind sir.

I genuinely don't understand when people say the friendzone is a misogynistic idea. Like, I hate misogyny, but when I see someone talking about being friendzoned I do not see someone who hates women, I see someone who is sad to have been rejected, and I feel sorry for them. Someone explain this to me better than that dickish article at the top did?

A) It implies that being friends with a woman is a bad thing (or, as that wonderful comic that was linked here:

This comic [http://aggregatoredicazzate.com/post/39128117570/the-friend-zoner-vs-nice-guy-mamamantis]

says, "a crappy consolation prize"). Being friends with a woman is not a bad thing. It is not the end of the world. A woman is not doing anything wrong by wanting to be your friend and nothing more. In fact, if you genuinely like her as a human being (and not as a mere sex object), you should be grateful that she wants to be your friend at all. If you don't consider friendships with women to be inherently valuable (or not as valuable as friendships with men), that sounds pretty misogynistic.

B) If you do not see her friendship as having any worth, then why were you being Mr. Nice Guy to her? Why were you her shoulder to cry on/her confidante/etc.? Are you such a kind soul that you would do that for anyone? If you were treating her like a friend, but you don't consider her friendship valuable, you're being an extremely manipulative person. Put yourself in her shoes: you finally meet a guy who seems to give a shit about what you're saying and doesn't seem to want only sex from you, who sees you as an actual human being instead of a walking vagina, and what do you know. It turns out he was faking it. He is just like those guys, only he tried to catch you off guard, he tried to manipulate you emotionally in order to get sex. And since he thinks your friendship is a bad thing, it confirms your suspicion that you were just a sex object for him and his 'nice guy' act was a ploy to find an emotional weakness he could exploit.

That you consider doing this to a woman is acceptable but would feel outraged if a woman did it to you (faking friendship but but secretly wanting you as a free dildo and endless source of of cash and manual labour) is pretty misogynistic.

C) You're treating women like they are even worse than whores. Would you offer a woman money to sleep with you? That implies that you think she's a whore (not that there's anything wrong with being a whore, but a lot of women take offence at being mistaken for or compared to one). Would you offer to pay a whore with "nice things" instead of money? That would make you insultingly cheap. I am pretty sure a whore would laugh in your face if you offered to pay her in anything but cold hard cash. And yet there you are, assuming that a given amount of nice things paid unto a woman will get you laid.

I don't think I need to explain why this is misogynistic.

D) If all you want out of a woman is sex, it implies she doesn't possess any other desirable qualities. She is defined solely by her looks (and perhaps sexual prowess). You are devaluing her intelligence, passions, emotions, interests, talents and hobbies because your penis doesn't care about any of that.

And then you complain when women make generalised statements about men only caring about sex, being misogynistic pigs, etc.

I hope this has been enlightening.

 

[Calibanbutcher]

I'm sorry you lost me around the point of smurf dicks and PCP. What in the all merciful crap was all that about?

Try some PCP and you will see my friend.
It will all become Oh so clear to you.
Oh so clear.
Smurf dicks. Smurf dicks everywhere.

 

[Irridium]

You. I like you. You're going places.

Thank you, kind sir.

I genuinely don't understand when people say the friendzone is a misogynistic idea. Like, I hate misogyny, but when I see someone talking about being friendzoned I do not see someone who hates women, I see someone who is sad to have been rejected, and I feel sorry for them. Someone explain this to me better than that dickish article at the top did?

A) It implies that being friends with a woman is a bad thing (or, as that wonderful comic that was linked here:

This comic [http://aggregatoredicazzate.com/post/39128117570/the-friend-zoner-vs-nice-guy-mamamantis] is pretty much how I feel about this whole "friend zone" topic.

says, "a crappy consolation prize"). Being friends with a woman is not a bad thing. It is not the end of the world. A woman is not doing anything wrong by wanting to be your friend and nothing more. In fact, if you genuinely like her as a human being (and not as a mere sex object), you should be grateful that she wants to be your friend at all. If you don't consider friendships with women to be inherently valuable (or not as valuable as friendships with men), that sounds pretty misogynistic.

B) If you do not see her friendship as having any worth, then why were you being Mr. Nice Guy to her? Why were you her shoulder to cry on/her confidante/etc.? Are you such a kind soul that you would do that for anyone? If you were treating her like a friend, but you don't consider her friendship valuable, you're being an extremely manipulative person. Put yourself in her shoes: you finally meet a guy who seems to give a shit about what you're saying and doesn't seem to want only sex from you, who sees you as an actual human being instead of a walking vagina, and what do you know. It turns out he was faking it. He is just like those guys, only he tried to catch you off guard, he tried to manipulate you emotionally in order to get sex. And since he thinks your friendship is a bad thing, it confirms your suspicion that you were just a sex object for him and his 'nice guy' act was a ploy to find an emotional weakness he could exploit.

That you consider doing this to a woman is acceptable but would feel outraged if a woman did it to you (faking friendship but but secretly wanting you as a free dildo and endless source of of cash and manual labour) is pretty misogynistic.

C) You're treating women like they are even worse than whores. Would you offer a woman money to sleep with you? That implies that you think she's a whore (not that there's anything wrong with being a whore, but a lot of women take offence at being mistaken for or compared to one). Would you offer to pay a whore with "nice things" instead of money? That would make you insultingly cheap. I am pretty sure a whore would laugh in your face if you offered to pay her in anything but cold hard cash. And yet there you are, assuming that a given amount of nice things paid unto a woman will get you laid.

I don't think I need to explain why this is misogynistic.

D) If all you want out of a woman is sex, it implies she doesn't possess any other desirable qualities. She is defined solely by her looks (and perhaps sexual prowess). You are devaluing her intelligence, passions, emotions, interests, talents and hobbies because your penis doesn't care about any of that.

And then you complain when women make generalised statements about men only caring about sex, being misogynistic pigs, etc.

I hope this has been enlightening.

Oh you misunderstand me, I'm on the side of the woman, not the guy in that comic. Sorry, should have been clearer on that... I'll edit the post.

 

[Darken12]

Oh you misunderstand me, I'm on the side of the woman, not the guy in that comic. Sorry, should have been clearer on that... I'll edit the post.

No, no, that's what I assumed; it's why I called it a wonderful comic (thanks for linking it, it's pretty good).

 

[Irridium]

Oh you misunderstand me, I'm on the side of the woman, not the guy in that comic. Sorry, should have been clearer on that... I'll edit the post.

No, no, that's what I assumed; it's why I called it a wonderful comic (thanks for linking it, it's pretty good).

Ah, I see. My mistake then. And it is indeed a great comic, feel free to also spread it around

 

[janjotat]

I always find it slightly irksome when new members come on and bring up what they foresee to be a new and controversial topic, when it has been done a hundred times before.

There should be a thread where threads that have been done to death are listed. Or has that been done before?
Edit: here it is

 

[vrbtny]

This the single, most awesome thread of all time. Ever.
Since the beginning of time, and Dr. Who time.
I have the weirdest boner right now.

 

[Hjalmar Fryklund]

Hmm, I spy another "friendzone" thread! Will there be whiny textual bloodbaths--what?

How is this even a thing? I'm a dude. I get it. Girls can be scary. They look just like humans, but they make Weird Things happen in your pants-area. It must be magic. They are the Gargamels to your dick's whatever-Smurf-your-dick-is.

(Sidenote: the makers of The Smurfs meant for each Smurf to represent a different kind of dick. There are 99 dick archetypes. Mine's Vanity Smurf because it's so god damned beautiful. Yours might be Baby Smurf because it's so tiny or Fakir Smurf because it's racist as hell.)

...oh man. You know it's late when stuff like this makes you chortle, Hjalmar. Get to bed, you silly old boy!

P.S: Article kinda ran out of steam half-way through. Should have thrown in more humor at the end. On the other hand, it dealt with the subject matter in a fairly concise manner, so I'll give it an "OK" stamp.

 

[WWmelb]

Wow.. people take things way too seriously sometimes. I took that rant as one thing: A humerous outlook on the whole bullshit friend zone thing, with a slight twist towards giving some relatively good advise through it.

Funny as all hell read to me, but each to their own i guess.

In short, lighten the fuck up not everything needs to be war and peace, just look at things with a smile and have a giggle in the morning, it makes your day better

 

[klaynexas3]

May I offer a third scenario?

Person A likes person B. Person B says they like person A, but doesn't act upon it, either currently having a boyfriend or "not wanting a relationship at the moment." Person B gets a new boyfriend. Person A goes "What the fuck?" And then fill in the blank depending on how much person A cared for person B and how much of a pushover person A is.

Though I assume a better name for this would be "parasitic host" or "manipulated" zone, but that's a mouthful. They try to keep you as a friend and use the caring of person A as a leash to keep them close, so I was willing to sweep that one under the friendzone blanket, though I don't know how many others agree.

 

[Darken12]

May I offer a third scenario?

Person A likes person B. Person B says they like person A, but doesn't act upon it, either currently having a boyfriend or "not wanting a relationship at the moment." Person B gets a new boyfriend. Person A goes "What the fuck?" And then fill in the blank depending on how much person A cared for person B and how much of a pushover person A is.

Though I assume a better name for this would be "parasitic host" or "manipulated" zone, but that's a mouthful. They try to keep you as a friend and use the caring of person A as a leash to keep them close, so I was willing to sweep that one under the friendzone blanket, though I don't know how many others agree.

Person A doesn't have the right to be mad at Person B for doing to them the exact same thing they're doing to Person B.

It's a tug of war. One side tries to manipulate the other into a relationship (or sex) and the other side tries to manipulate the other to avoid a relationship (or sex).

 

[In Search of Username]

You. I like you. You're going places.

Thank you, kind sir.

I genuinely don't understand when people say the friendzone is a misogynistic idea. Like, I hate misogyny, but when I see someone talking about being friendzoned I do not see someone who hates women, I see someone who is sad to have been rejected, and I feel sorry for them. Someone explain this to me better than that dickish article at the top did?

A) It implies that being friends with a woman is a bad thing (or, as that wonderful comic that was linked here:

This comic [http://aggregatoredicazzate.com/post/39128117570/the-friend-zoner-vs-nice-guy-mamamantis]

says, "a crappy consolation prize"). Being friends with a woman is not a bad thing. It is not the end of the world. A woman is not doing anything wrong by wanting to be your friend and nothing more. In fact, if you genuinely like her as a human being (and not as a mere sex object), you should be grateful that she wants to be your friend at all. If you don't consider friendships with women to be inherently valuable (or not as valuable as friendships with men), that sounds pretty misogynistic.

B) If you do not see her friendship as having any worth, then why were you being Mr. Nice Guy to her? Why were you her shoulder to cry on/her confidante/etc.? Are you such a kind soul that you would do that for anyone? If you were treating her like a friend, but you don't consider her friendship valuable, you're being an extremely manipulative person. Put yourself in her shoes: you finally meet a guy who seems to give a shit about what you're saying and doesn't seem to want only sex from you, who sees you as an actual human being instead of a walking vagina, and what do you know. It turns out he was faking it. He is just like those guys, only he tried to catch you off guard, he tried to manipulate you emotionally in order to get sex. And since he thinks your friendship is a bad thing, it confirms your suspicion that you were just a sex object for him and his 'nice guy' act was a ploy to find an emotional weakness he could exploit.

That you consider doing this to a woman is acceptable but would feel outraged if a woman did it to you (faking friendship but but secretly wanting you as a free dildo and endless source of of cash and manual labour) is pretty misogynistic.

C) You're treating women like they are even worse than whores. Would you offer a woman money to sleep with you? That implies that you think she's a whore (not that there's anything wrong with being a whore, but a lot of women take offence at being mistaken for or compared to one). Would you offer to pay a whore with "nice things" instead of money? That would make you insultingly cheap. I am pretty sure a whore would laugh in your face if you offered to pay her in anything but cold hard cash. And yet there you are, assuming that a given amount of nice things paid unto a woman will get you laid.

I don't think I need to explain why this is misogynistic.

D) If all you want out of a woman is sex, it implies she doesn't possess any other desirable qualities. She is defined solely by her looks (and perhaps sexual prowess). You are devaluing her intelligence, passions, emotions, interests, talents and hobbies because your penis doesn't care about any of that.

And then you complain when women make generalised statements about men only caring about sex, being misogynistic pigs, etc.

I hope this has been enlightening.

A) No it doesn't. It implies that being friends with this particular woman is a bad thing in comparison to being her boyfriend. The fact that a guy likes someone as more than a friend does not devalue the entire concept of friendship, nor even this friendship - surely you understand that if you have feelings for someone it is very difficult to be satisfied just being their friend? That it's hard to value that friendship, however nice it would usually be, when you actually want something else entirely? Friendships with women are valuable. A friendship with someone you want to be more than friends with is understandably unsatisfying.

B) Relationships tend to naturally grow out of friendships, it's absurd to act like because you've developed feelings for someone you must have been just pretending to like them as a friend before. It is perfectly possible to have a genuine friendship with someone and still become unsatisfied when you realise you want more than that. The way you're oversimplifying this is just ridiculous, frankly.

C)This part makes sense, I guess - it is stupid to act like relationships are some sort of trade of niceness for sex, to pretend that they're motivated by anything other than two people being attracted to each other. Although I must say I can see why people might think it's unfair that life DOESN'T work that way; it'd feel a lot more fair if being nice was rewarded more tangibly. But yes, obviously you can't expect someone to actually do that if they don't find you attractive, that's just how life works.

D)Again, wanting sex =/= only valuing sex. You can value someone as a friend at the same time as having feelings for them, and be upset when you're rejected while still valuing the friendship itself but understandably not thinking about that at the time because you're upset about being rejected.

Basically most of your argument seems to be based on the idea that if a man wants sex, he can no longer conceivably value friendship, whereas what the friendzone actually means is that while friendship is all well and good, it simply isn't satisfying if you want more, and it's perfectly reasonable, in my view, to be upset about that. I would never blame the woman who rejected me, it's not like who she's attracted to is a conscious decision on her part after all. But the tone of your post kind of implies that any man who is upset about being rejected is just an immature sexist pig who has no right to be upset about anything. Which is just blatant misandry.