Lol Friend-zone

[Darken12]

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.

You have a self-contradicting argument here. You state below that relationships can grow from friendships. Then here you say that a friendship might be unsatisfying in comparison to being her boyfriend. If you were already her friend (and let's assume for the sake of argument that you mean a genuine friend), then what would be different if you two were in a relationship? Sex and other forms of physical intimacy seem to be the only thing different if you assume that this relationship evolved from friendship. If that's the case, then that supports my argument, because the only thing that you find unsatisfying here is the lack of sex. You may care about the friendship, sure, but clearly it's insignificant in comparison to all the sex you could be having.

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.

This sounds awfully convenient. There have been many, many cases where a man has wanted to have sex with a woman (because guess what? Physical attraction almost always triggers before you develop an emotional connection with someone. An emotional connection, such as friendship, is an intellectual and emotional exercise of your higher brain functions. Finding someone sexually attractive is extremely basic and instinctive, in most cases), and he has used the friendship excuse in order to mask his real intents. Now, I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt here and say that maybe not all friends-who-want-more are this, but you have to admit that it looks pretty dodgy.

But even if things are completely innocent, you still have to realise that the moment the friend wants more is the moment he can't blame anyone other than himself for what happens next. If he's the one that's willing to jeopardise the friendship because he wants more (and doesn't care about whether the woman valued the friendship or even if she wanted more), then he's clearly acting only on his best interests. He's not thinking about what the woman wants or would prefer, and then he gets pissed when he doesn't get his way when he's the one that started everything. What a shitty thing to do to a friend. How would you feel if your friend grabbed you just as you were about to eat some lunch you had prepared yourself, dragged you halfway through the city and tried to have lunch with you at the worst possible restaurant, ordering for you something you absolutely despise, and then getting pissed that you're not enjoying yourself and want to go back home? Wouldn't you be pissed that he's making all these decisions without asking you first, and then getting angry and blaming you when you don't react the way he expects you to?

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.

You have a frightening lack of empathy. I'm a pretty nice, self-sacrificing person. I have yet to receive a single penny for all my hospital work. One day, I will be literally saving lives and healing people with my hands, and it is almost universally agreed that those things are pretty nice. How would you feel if I felt entitled to get sex from you in return for all this good I have done for the world? And how would you feel if, after you telling me you don't find me attractive, I said something along the lines of "Bah! Life is unfair! Being nice is never rewarded!"? Wouldn't you feel outraged that I'm expecting you to bend over because I did good things in my life? Or even worse, wouldn't you feel outraged if I expected you to bend over after I did something nice for you?

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.

See my first paragraph above. If the only difference between friend and girlfriend is the sex (since, as you said, this relationship arose innocently from a friendship) then sure, you might not only value sex, but you value it a whole damn lot more than anything else. Hell, you value it enough to make unilateral decisions about the friendship (trying to get it to become something more) and being so upset at the lack of sex that it blinds you to all the good things this friendship has that you supposedly value.

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.

No, my argument is that a lot of men care about sex overmuch, and feel entitled to it. This sense of entitlement is what makes them blame women for not giving them sex when it's not their duty to do so, no matter how nice the guy has been with them. My argument regarding men not valuing friendship isn't something I'm making up, it's the logical conclusion derived from the way so many men treat this infamous friend zone. If you guys value friendship so much, why is it such a bad thing?

You can't have it both ways. If you really value a friendship, you will not be disappointed if that's all you get from a woman. If you want to feel bad, frustrated, angry and sad because you didn't get to be her boyfriend and you ended up being just her friend, you can't claim that you value friendship. Your reactions are not in concordance with this alleged treasuring of friendship. If you don't get a cherry on top of your ice cream, you can't tell me you like ice cream sans cherry when you look at your cherry-less ice cream dejectedly and you don't even want to eat it.

 

[Terrible Opinions]

How disappointed am I that this thread isn't about League of Legends characters that everyone likes but nobody uses?

Somewhat. I am somewhat disappointed.

 

[WOPR]

I think this will explain everything I was just thinking.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5j0NWJrGrw&t=8m48s
(I don't know how to embed with the timestamp)

 

[In Search of Username]

You have a self-contradicting argument here. You state below that relationships can grow from friendships. Then here you say that a friendship might be unsatisfying in comparison to being her boyfriend. If you were already her friend (and let's assume for the sake of argument that you mean a genuine friend), then what would be different if you two were in a relationship? Sex and other forms of physical intimacy seem to be the only thing different if you assume that this relationship evolved from friendship. If that's the case, then that supports my argument, because the only thing that you find unsatisfying here is the lack of sex. You may care about the friendship, sure, but clearly it's insignificant in comparison to all the sex you could be having.

Well yeah, a relationship is essentially a very strong friendship + sex. I don't really see your point though, are you saying it's shallow to care about sex or to care about the fact this person doesn't feel the same way about you that you do about them? Rejection hurts. It's not unreasonable to acknowledge that.

This sounds awfully convenient. There have been many, many cases where a man has wanted to have sex with a woman (because guess what? Physical attraction almost always triggers before you develop an emotional connection with someone. An emotional connection, such as friendship, is an intellectual and emotional exercise of your higher brain functions. Finding someone sexually attractive is extremely basic and instinctive, in most cases), and he has used the friendship excuse in order to mask his real intents. Now, I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt here and say that maybe not all friends-who-want-more are this, but you have to admit that it looks pretty dodgy.

But even if things are completely innocent, you still have to realise that the moment the friend wants more is the moment he can't blame anyone other than himself for what happens next. If he's the one that's willing to jeopardise the friendship because he wants more (and doesn't care about whether the woman valued the friendship or even if she wanted more), then he's clearly acting only on his best interests. He's not thinking about what the woman wants or would prefer, and then he gets pissed when he doesn't get his way when he's the one that started everything. What a shitty thing to do to a friend. How would you feel if your friend grabbed you just as you were about to eat some lunch you had prepared yourself, dragged you halfway through the city and tried to have lunch with you at the worst possible restaurant, ordering for you something you absolutely despise, and then getting pissed that you're not enjoying yourself and want to go back home? Wouldn't you be pissed that he's making all these decisions without asking you first, and then getting angry and blaming you when you don't react the way he expects you to?

You're very, very cynical if you think most people who get sexually attracted to someone they previously were only friends with were just using the friendship as a ploy to get into their pants all along. Most people are not so shallow in my experience.

Except you don't choose to become attracted to someone, and once you do it's pretty goddamn painful not to act on your desires. I understand that it's unreasonable to blame the woman for this because much like you don't choose to like her, she doesn't choose not to like you - but your argument seems to be not just that you can't get angry at the person who rejected you, but that you can't get angry full stop. Asking someone out and being rejected is unpleasant for both people involved, but it is not the FAULT of the person who initiated it any more than it is the other person's fault; you should feel sympathy for both.

You have a frightening lack of empathy. I'm a pretty nice, self-sacrificing person. I have yet to receive a single penny for all my hospital work. One day, I will be literally saving lives and healing people with my hands, and it is almost universally agreed that those things are pretty nice. How would you feel if I felt entitled to get sex from you in return for all this good I have done for the world? And how would you feel if, after you telling me you don't find me attractive, I said something along the lines of "Bah! Life is unfair! Being nice is never rewarded!"? Wouldn't you feel outraged that I'm expecting you to bend over because I did good things in my life? Or even worse, wouldn't you feel outraged if I expected you to bend over after I did something nice for you?

What? I said it's reasonable to wish life was more fair, in an abstract sense. To wish for a world in which good deeds were rewarded. I specifically did not say it was reasonable to demand sex from someone because of all the nice things you've done. You apparently stopped reading after the part where I said it would be nice if life was more fair like that, and didn't notice the part where I said it fundamentally couldn't be because, y'know, other people are people too.

See my first paragraph above. If the only difference between friend and girlfriend is the sex (since, as you said, this relationship arose innocently from a friendship) then sure, you might not only value sex, but you value it a whole damn lot more than anything else. Hell, you value it enough to make unilateral decisions about the friendship (trying to get it to become something more) and being so upset at the lack of sex that it blinds you to all the good things this friendship has that you supposedly value.

Yeah. Sex does that to people. I don't really know what to say about this, people care about sex a lot, doesn't make them shallow, it's just part of human existence, they can't help it.

No, my argument is that a lot of men care about sex overmuch, and feel entitled to it. This sense of entitlement is what makes them blame women for not giving them sex when it's not their duty to do so, no matter how nice the guy has been with them. My argument regarding men not valuing friendship isn't something I'm making up, it's the logical conclusion derived from the way so many men treat this infamous friend zone. If you guys value friendship so much, why is it such a bad thing?

You can't have it both ways. If you really value a friendship, you will not be disappointed if that's all you get from a woman. If you want to feel bad, frustrated, angry and sad because you didn't get to be her boyfriend and you ended up being just her friend, you can't claim that you value friendship. Your reactions are not in concordance with this alleged treasuring of friendship. If you don't get a cherry on top of your ice cream, you can't tell me you like ice cream sans cherry when you look at your cherry-less ice cream dejectedly and you don't even want to eat it.

You speak like someone who has never actually been seriously attracted to another and not had anything come of it. Sexual attraction has a way of overpowering everything else, so that however good friendship was yesterday, it all of a sudden becomes insignificant that you have a nice friendship with this person, because the thing you want most is a relationship, not just a friendship. And friendship is not, as I have said several times, the 'bad thing' about being in the friendzone; it's not the presence of friendship, it's the ABSENCE of a relationship that is the problem.

Why is this a binary thing with you, that if you value a relationship you cannot possibly value friendship? The point is it's hard to continue being happy about the friendship when you've become completely fixated on wanting something more, and that is what happens when you seriously want a relationship with someone.

And you keep mentioning 'blame'. I have said plenty of times that it is unreasonable to blame the woman, but the concept of the friendzone does not inherently do so. It implies that the 'friendzoning' was an action on the part of the woman, but NOT that it was an unreasonable or malicious action, or that they did it out of spite, or that they made a conscious decision not to like you, or anything like that. It's simply a description of an action that has understandably upset you, it doesn't imply the woman had no right to do it or anything. The concept can be used in a misogynistic way if people start saying it was unreasonable for the woman to reject the man or that she had no right - but fundamentally it needn't be used that way, and is just a word to describe the unfortunate situation the guy has been put into.

 

[archvile93]

I don't think thinking of women as people really works when you're extremely distrustful and cynical of other people. At least forces of nature aren't actively malevolent.

 

[JudgeGame]

I don't think thinking of women as people really works when you're extremely distrustful and cynical of other people. At least forces of nature aren't actively malevolent.

Someone who felt like that should definitely not enter a physical relationship for their own good.

 

[JudgeGame]

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.

Nobody has an obligation to go out with person A. They're not even in a relationship. It's kind of a non-issue.

 

[Toy Master Typhus]

Nobody has an obligation to go out with person A. They're not even in a relationship. It's kind of a non-issue.

They aren't obligated but isn't it sort of a shit move to use someone's affections as way to hold them against their better reason.

 

[Combustion Kevin]

I find it funny how sex is the only possible reason men would try to date a woman for, clearly we are just dogs in human form like that.

now if you'll excuse me, I have some cave-man grunting to do.

 

[JudgeGame]

Nobody has an obligation to go out with person A. They're not even in a relationship. It's kind of a non-issue.

They aren't obligated but isn't it sort of a shit move to use someone's affections as way to hold them against their better reason.

What part of that is someone being "used"? Somebody liked somebody else. Some time later they don't like them as much or they just found somebody they like more. Relationships aren't business contracts. If they found somebody else, the original interest should feel lucky they didn't have to go through a relationship which was clearly going to fail anyway.

 

[Darken12]

Well yeah, a relationship is essentially a very strong friendship + sex. I don't really see your point though, are you saying it's shallow to care about sex or to care about the fact this person doesn't feel the same way about you that you do about them? Rejection hurts. It's not unreasonable to acknowledge that.

Because that's never, ever the case. It's never "aw, shucks, rejected again. Oh well." Instead it's anything from "women are bitches!" to pages and pages of whining about all the myriad ways in which a woman has wronged a man, with the friendzone being the final straw. Don't downplay the excessive amount of bitching that men get up to when their nice guy act fails. That's the problem. These men get excessively emotionally invested into this potential relationship and into sex in general. It's not the mere "acknowledgement that rejection hurts", it's an event of catastrophic proportions for them. Let's not play coy. We both know these men aren't being demure and understated when it comes to their feelings.

You're very, very cynical if you think most people who get sexually attracted to someone they previously were only friends with were just using the friendship as a ploy to get into their pants all along. Most people are not so shallow in my experience.

Then why do all these friendzone-hating men keep listing all the things they've done for the woman? Why do they feel frustrated and short-changed? Why do they sound exactly as if they had been ripped off at a store? They clearly consider all those things are devoid of intrinsic value if they feel ripped off. "Oh, but I was her shoulder to cry on!" So that means if you had previously known you had absolutely no chance of getting into her pants, you wouldn't have bothered being her shoulder? If yes, then congratulations, you don't give two shits about her friendship and it was all a ploy to get into her pants. If not, then why do you bring it up? If it was a selfless act of niceness, you never think of it again, because that's what selfless means. You do it, and your reward is the act itself. If you are not rewarded by the act itself, you weren't being selfless. If you weren't being selfless, then why did you do it? What was in it for you? The possibility of getting into her pants later on? Exactly my point.

Except you don't choose to become attracted to someone, and once you do it's pretty goddamn painful not to act on your desires. I understand that it's unreasonable to blame the woman for this because much like you don't choose to like her, she doesn't choose not to like you - but your argument seems to be not just that you can't get angry at the person who rejected you, but that you can't get angry full stop. Asking someone out and being rejected is unpleasant for both people involved, but it is not the FAULT of the person who initiated it any more than it is the other person's fault; you should feel sympathy for both.

That is a very disingenuous argument. Just because you have feelings for a friend doesn't mean you are obligated to do something about it. Especially when you know your chances of being reciprocated are pretty slim (you're just making everyone uncomfortable for a slim chance she feels something for you but has failed to indicate it). The world is not to blame for the way you deal with your emotions. Similarly, you are not blameless if you let your emotions get the better of you. Punching someone in a fit of anger doesn't let you walk away from court without being punished or making amends.

Being a mature adult is about mastering your own emotions. That's what ultimately separates adults from teenagers, regardless of your physical age. When you learn responsibility and master your own emotions, congratulations, you're an adult. I have no sympathy for someone who is some sort of emotion-driven maelstrom and doesn't even acknowledge that they fucked up by letting their emotions get the better of them. I would feel sympathy for the person who, when "friendzoned", takes full responsibility for what they're feeling and feels no resentment or anger towards the woman at all (which is never the case, btw).

What? I said it's reasonable to wish life was more fair, in an abstract sense. To wish for a world in which good deeds were rewarded. I specifically did not say it was reasonable to demand sex from someone because of all the nice things you've done. You apparently stopped reading after the part where I said it would be nice if life was more fair like that, and didn't notice the part where I said it fundamentally couldn't be because, y'know, other people are people too.

You completely missed my point. My point is that you seriously consider that sex is an acceptable reward for being nice. Sex as a reward implies a one-sided benefit, with your sexual partner's enjoyment as a secondary concern. That is not a healthy conception of sex. Sex is a consensual activity between two consenting adults who are enjoying themselves equally. The very notion of considering sex as a reward skews that balance towards benefiting the rewarded person, skewing the notion of sex as a shared activity between equals towards an activity where one person is rewarded and the other one's enjoyment is secondary. Sex should never be considered a reward.

Yeah. Sex does that to people. I don't really know what to say about this, people care about sex a lot, doesn't make them shallow, it's just part of human existence, they can't help it.

No. Sex doesn't do anything to people. Sex is an abstract concept/physical act. It has no volition of its own. The concept of sex might trigger a hormonal cascade and make your neurotransmitters go haywire, but none of this removes your free will, conscious judgement or self-restraint. This hormonal cascade and neurotransmitter orgy might affect your emotions, but once again, you are not a mindless maelstrom of feelings. Don't wash your hands and say that you can't help it. Take responsibility for the dumb shit you do or say without thinking, admit that you fucked up and did a wrong thing, apologise, make amends and try not to fuck up next time. It's that simple, it just takes courage to own up to it, and it's much easier to pretend there was nothing you could have done.

As an aside, it's hilariously hypocritical to complain of misandry when women say exactly that about men, only negatively. So if a woman says that a man is ruled by his dick, she's a horrible misandrist, but when a man says he just can't help it, I'm supposed to feel sorry? Sorry, but no. I have a dick, too, and I don't use it as a shield to avoid dealing with the repercussions of the dumb shit I do.

You speak like someone who has never actually been seriously attracted to another and not had anything come of it. Sexual attraction has a way of overpowering everything else, so that however good friendship was yesterday, it all of a sudden becomes insignificant that you have a nice friendship with this person, because the thing you want most is a relationship, not just a friendship. And friendship is not, as I have said several times, the 'bad thing' about being in the friendzone; it's not the presence of friendship, it's the ABSENCE of a relationship that is the problem.

No, I speak as someone who doesn't use emotions as an excuse for the things he does. Feeling a strong emotion doesn't excuse your actions. It might not be as bad as cold premeditation, but it doesn't mean you walk away scot free. You are still responsible for the things you do. If the absence of a relationship makes a previous valued friendship insignificant, there is something wrong with you. Not wanting to admit that is what kills any sympathy I might have. If you understand, intellectually, that the friendship with the woman is valuable, but you feel that it's not, and you don't see this as a bad thing that you should correct? Sorry, no sympathy for you. You're being selfish and dodging responsibility for your own shortcomings.

Why is this a binary thing with you, that if you value a relationship you cannot possibly value friendship? The point is it's hard to continue being happy about the friendship when you've become completely fixated on wanting something more, and that is what happens when you seriously want a relationship with someone.

Because that's what the frienzone-hating men are saying, that the value of this friendship pales in comparison to all the sex he could be having. When they let something so selfish ("the sex he could be having") eclipse something they allegedly value, and have the audacity to blame anyone but themselves, then clearly they don't value friendship that much. If they did, they would remind themselves of all the good things in that friendship, and all the non-romantic things they enjoy about that woman, and they would realise that sex is not respiration and they can live just fine without it. But you know why this doesn't happen? I'll give you a hint: because they don't care about the friendship.

And you keep mentioning 'blame'. I have said plenty of times that it is unreasonable to blame the woman, but the concept of the friendzone does not inherently do so. It implies that the 'friendzoning' was an action on the part of the woman, but NOT that it was an unreasonable or malicious action, or that they did it out of spite, or that they made a conscious decision not to like you, or anything like that. It's simply a description of an action that has understandably upset you, it doesn't imply the woman had no right to do it or anything. The concept can be used in a misogynistic way if people start saying it was unreasonable for the woman to reject the man or that she had no right - but fundamentally it needn't be used that way, and is just a word to describe the unfortunate situation the guy has been put into.

Because the attitude of those men is very much steeped in blame. You are very much a minority to say that it's unreasonable to blame the woman. I have seen it myself how time and again, men blame the woman for "stringing him along", and "manipulating him" and "taking advantage of his feelings/niceness" and "treating him callously" and so on and so forth. Almost always, this is all very one-sided, very exaggerated, and basically smoke and mirrors to cover up the fact that they're irrationally angry at these women for not submitting to the patriarchy and giving up their own interests and desires when a man comes stomping by.

 

[EeveeElectro]

I just find it hilarious there's some guys out there who seem to think women can control their feelings and purposely put you in this magical non-existant friendzone.

We don't all rub our hands together and cackle and have board meetings to determine which men we're going to be putting in the friendzone and not have sex with.

[sub]Our next meeting is tomorrow at 7pm, ladies. I baked us some cookies to share around.[/sub]

Imagine going to Subway and them asking, "Would you like pickles with that?" and for you to say no because you don't like them, and then they say, "But WHY! Pickles could be SO good for you! You might not like them, but they like you so you should do them a favour by eating them. I know Jalapenos is everything you want in a pickle, but Jalapenos are just taste-bud abusive douchebags who go to the gym!"

See how it doesn't make sense in another context?

 

[Killclaw Kilrathi]

Personally I don't understand why a guy would want to get into a relationship with someone they don't enjoy having as a friend first.

A word of advice, kids. All that friend stuff you do with someone without getting in their pants? You're gonna be doing a lot more of it when you're in a relationship with them, so you had better enjoy it. Sex is fantastic, but it's only a tiny fraction of having a partner. And if you just can't stand the non-sexual part of having them around, just give up and move on, for both of your sakes.

And yeah, most guys already know this, I'm not talking about them. I also know it goes both ways. But there are plenty of people who only do the friend stuff because they feel they'll be rewarded with sex in the end, and that's just not a good way to go about anything.

 

[Davroth]

Never ran into that problem. I make sure to take any ambiguity out of the relations I have with females. Just so we are both on the same page from the start. ^^

 

[Hagi]

Yay! Another irrational friendzone thread, like we didn't have enough of those.

Can't we just deal with this whole thing without anger or resentment?

Boy falls in love with girl. Boy is not the flirting type. Boy acts friendly towards girl. Boy becomes friends with girl. Boy gets rejected for anything more by girl. Boy is sad and emotional. Boy was in love. Boy shows anger and resentment.

Girl is approached by friendly boy. Girl would like friendship with boy. Girl becomes friends with boy. Girl rejects advances of boy. Girl is sad and emotional by boy being angry and resentful. Girl thought they were friends. Girl shows anger and resentment.

(substitute boy for girl or vice versa as applicable)

It's not complicated. Both sides have feelings and got those feeling hurts because they did not understand the feelings of the other side.

Getting rejected ain't easy and when you're in love you generally don't act fully rational.
Rejecting someone you like is just as hard and when you feel your friend has abandoned you you generally don't act entirely rational either.

It's just another 'thing' in the cesspit of teenage emotions and generally no longer viewed as existing or real by adults.

 

[DoveAlexa]

I love how many comments (especially first page) in here are people going "La La La, can't hear you, everything's fine and the women are t'bad". Lol, it's really better that way as it makes it easier for everyone else to spot them and keep them at arms length at all times.

I actually personally know a Nice Guy tm who is the SCARIEST person I know first hand. First of all, I'm MARRIED, and he comes up to me on steam chat every so often to puppy-dog eyes me for attention in the creepiest manner possible.

Quotes from him include: (not exact wording, but damn close)

-"Oh you're playing Fallout New Vegas! That's so Amazing! Will you marry me?"
-"OH WAIT" [long pause]

-"I haven't spoken to a woman in forever"
-"I have a weird question for you"
-"Have you ever fallen in love?"
[long pause]
Me:-"yes, with my husband"
-"Oh, that makes sense......"

I'd tell him to go away and never speak to me again but I am both too polite and I'm afraid he might take a 9 hour flight just to kill us both (me and my husband) in our beds in the night. I don't even know why he started talking to me -- or proposing to me -- considering I only knew him as a mild forum acquaintance.

 

[In Search of Username]

I'll just reply to parts of this because it's becoming long-winded and a lot of your argument can be condensed to a few specific things we disagree on. This part I will address fully though:

You completely missed my point. My point is that you seriously consider that sex is an acceptable reward for being nice. Sex as a reward implies a one-sided benefit, with your sexual partner's enjoyment as a secondary concern. That is not a healthy conception of sex. Sex is a consensual activity between two consenting adults who are enjoying themselves equally. The very notion of considering sex as a reward skews that balance towards benefiting the rewarded person, skewing the notion of sex as a shared activity between equals towards an activity where one person is rewarded and the other one's enjoyment is secondary. Sex should never be considered a reward.

I think you've misunderstood what I was saying entirely here, and it's not really relevant to the main part of the argument. I was saying that, in some hypothetical version of existence in which 'sex as reward' would have none of the problems or consequences you mentioned, it would be nice for that to exist. In real life, I am fully aware that it is nothing like that and can never be anything like that, and would not want it to be because of how unfair it would be on whoever was forced to give this 'reward-sex'. I know sex should be between two consenting adults who are enjoying themselves equally. I know this other conception of sex is an unhealthy view of the world, but all I said was that I can understand why people would wish that, in some hypothetical scenario, it would be that way.

Now, some of the things you've been saying/implying a lot:

Everyone/almost everyone who uses the term friendzone [hates women/feels that sex should be a reward for their kindness/some other negative]

Fair enough if that's been your experience of the term, it has not been mine, I've heard it used perfectly innocently plenty of times, but what I am arguing here is that there is not any inherent misogyny in being upset about being rejected, and using this term to describe that rejection.

I have no sympathy for men who can't control their emotions.

Well then, you're a dick. You might be very mature and good at suppressing your feelings, but that doesn't entitle you to look down on everyone who can't control their strong emotions as being like teenagers. And no, your emotions do not control your actions entirely, but in a situation where you really care about someone they make it very difficult/emotionally painful not to act on those feelings. Honestly that line about me having a 'dangerous lack of empathy' a while back sounds incredibly hypocritical coming from you considering you absolutely refuse to show any sympathy for anyone who ever acts on their emotions. Becoming an adult does not mean becoming a robot. It's about taking responsibility for your actions, yes, but if someone acts foolishly or wrongly out of strong emotion you should still feel some kind of pity.

Men place too much importance on sex.

Yeah, perhaps in an ideal world sex would be considered less important. But sexual desire is a very basic, very strong biological impulse, and however much you talk about controlling your emotions it remains a difficult thing to do for the average person.

Wishing you were rewarded in some way for your good actions later on stops them from being originally selfless.

No. It's perfectly possible to do something at the time because you felt it was the right thing to do, and still later become bitter about having seen no kind of karmic reward for it. I'm not gonna claim it's a very productive mindset because there's no way thinking like that's going to help you get what you want, but to reduce it to 'You're upset about not being rewarded for your good actions? Then they must have been motivated entirely by the desire for reward!' is, again, oversimplifying.

 

[Angie7F]

I think friend zoning only exists for a very small period of your life.
Either you are too young or you get married/ too old to be on the dating market, too busy with work, too busy being sick etc and less and less encounters are potentially sexual.
This is why I dont spend too much time thinking about it...