On the Friend Zone
That's right, I said it. Settle down.
This may not be the most popular or all-encompassing topics that I've ever dealt with in my short and unsung career as a philosopher, but it is an important one nonetheless, and I feel obliged to deal with it.
The problem with talking about the Friend Zone to a large group of people is that it conjures up in many folk a quasi-religious zeal in favor of its own protection; I might as well challenge the immaculate conception over the Vatican loudspeakers as challenge the Friend Zone in front of modern college-age human beings. It is a part of many people that lies outside of any rational consideration and will not be brought down by any sensible argument.
That being said, let's get to the business of exercising futility.
For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, as any under-rock dweller would be wont to do at this point, let's just go ahead and figure out what exactly the Friend Zone is. The Friend Zone is a tiny part of a person's interpersonal psyche in which they place their conceptions of certain people, after which those in the Zone are stripped of all romantic capability. Or, in short, the Friend Zone is how a close friend of yours (usually of the opposite sex) looks at you after they have determined that they could never, ever date you. Most of the time you can tell when you have entered someone's Friend Zone by the utterance of a few key phrases. These include:
"You're like a brother to me."
"I think friendships are so much better than relationships. Don't you?"
"I could never do anything that could ruin our friendship."
My guess is that the overwhelming majority of those reading this blog have encountered one or more of the above on at least a couple of occasions. If you have, feel free to take a minute to gouge at your own flesh in remembered frustration. I can wait.
Once again, it is very important for me now to establish for good and all the gender differential at work here. In keeping with the somewhat more popular perceptions of the Friend Zone, I have found that the overwhelming majority of adherents to the concept are girls. I won't attempt to tackle the complex psychological issues at work in that fact, but suffice it to say that I have found the Friend Zone to be a tool largely wielded by females, and I will treat it as such. If that case does not work for you, feel free to switch the gender approach to the argument; you'll find that it works exactly the same.
It is a great curiousity to me that many girls, the same ones who are avid supporters of the Friend Zone, often complain about guys. There is no general type of complaint that comes to mind in particular, rather the whole field of them that strikes me, and they are many-varied. All guys are assholes. There are no good guys. Why are all boys cheaters? All boys care about is sex. This boyfriend/ex-boyfriend doesn't really care about my feelings. He forgot my birthday. He forgot our anniversary. He hooked up with my roommate/sister/mom/pet cat... There are tons of them, and I only just hit the very basics.
On the surface, these seem like fully legitimate complaints. I know that if I were a girl and no matter how I tried I couldn't find a half-way decent man, I would need to vent about it, too. The problem is that at the same time these girls would like to complain about all their guy troubles, they are continuously shooting themselves in the foot. For, as it turns out (and this is the best part), the people they are often complaining to are guys. Guys who are their friends. Guys they have locked away in the Friend Zone.
To this I pose a question to all you lovely ladies. And bear in mind that I mean this as respectfully as I possibly can.
Are you out of your fucking minds!?
Let me explain what I mean from the beginning. Suppose there is a girl who is single and looking, and two guys, who we will call Good Guy and Bad Guy. Good Guy is funny, attentive, respectful, smart, and interesting. Bad Guy is a drug addict, a known cheater, and eats kittens just for spite. Girl meets Good Guy and instantly senses the goodness within him. So they start to hang out. They have a great time and enrich each others' lives immensely every time they are together. Until one day, Good Guy tells Girl that he is awed and joyful at how well they work together, and he suggests that they take things to the next level. Good Girl, however, thinks that he could be right, but she also recognizes that relationships are not as stable as friendships simply by virtue of how deep they are. She knows that if they do become more, there is a chance that in the future it could all come crashing down. So she tells him, "I'm sorry, but I don't want to do anything that could ruin our friendship." Welcome to the Friend Zone, Good Guy.
Meanwhile, Girl has met Bad Guy. They don't see each other all that much, and when they are together Girl is ansy, uncomfortable. She doesn't quite get it, either. After all, Bad Guy is really hot and quite charming, but even so she doesn't feel quite right with him. When Bad Guy asks her out, however, she does her best to stow away her misgivings and give it a shot. Because, hell, it's not like there is anything really on the line. Despite her flippant attitude, though, Girl ends up dating Bad Guy for several months. Theirs is a rocky relationship, but at least they have each other, and whenever Bad Guy blows her off or takes advantage of her, Girl does have Good Guy to go to for emotional support. When the day finally comes that Bad Guy dumps her, Girl is the only one who is surprised, and she is pretty much emotionally destroyed by it. But, thank God, she can still run to Good Guy and cry on his shoulder. After all, she knows that her good friend will always be there for her.
Sound familiar?
When you look at it like this, the absurdity of the Friend Zone snaps into focus. Virtually all of a girl's friends are good guys, just the sort of guys that she would love to be with, who already care about and love her for who she is. THAT'S WHY THEY ARE HER FRIENDS. Girls, you have a perfectly functional source of good guys to date. It is called your friends.
This is why I am always astounded whenever a girl uses the rationale "He and I could never date, he's my friend!" to justify not being with a guy. It's lunacy. As it turns out, your friends are the first place you should go to look for a significant other, not the last.
Tell me that this makes at least a little sense to you.
I can understand the underlying rationale behind the Friend Zone. It comes from fear. Relationships are the gamble, and a Friend is not a gambling man. To hell with that. Yes, if you date someone who you are already friends with, you run the risk of losing that person. There's nothing wrong with that. And really, what's the alternative? Dating someone you don't care about? Bad call. Everything worth anything in this world is a risk, and you can never win anything if you don't put up anything to lose.
The idea of the Friend Zone is rooted in the most virile of pessimism; you see everything that you might lose but not what you stand to gain. But the beauty of the thing is that it doesn't have to be that way. In the same sense that a friendship-turned-relationship might crash and burn, it might soar like nothing else you've ever known. It might be incredible. Because, honestly, if a friendship with a guy is that great, think about how utterly amazing it could be if that friendship grew into more. Think about that. Keep it in mind the next time you think about how you feel towards a certain good guy friend. Keep it in mind when he pours his heart out to you. Imagine what wonder could come of it. And before you tell him that you're just friends and only ever friends, stop for a minute and think about what you're saying. You never know.
It might just be worth the risk.
This may not be the most popular or all-encompassing topics that I've ever dealt with in my short and unsung career as a philosopher, but it is an important one nonetheless, and I feel obliged to deal with it.
The problem with talking about the Friend Zone to a large group of people is that it conjures up in many folk a quasi-religious zeal in favor of its own protection; I might as well challenge the immaculate conception over the Vatican loudspeakers as challenge the Friend Zone in front of modern college-age human beings. It is a part of many people that lies outside of any rational consideration and will not be brought down by any sensible argument.
That being said, let's get to the business of exercising futility.
For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, as any under-rock dweller would be wont to do at this point, let's just go ahead and figure out what exactly the Friend Zone is. The Friend Zone is a tiny part of a person's interpersonal psyche in which they place their conceptions of certain people, after which those in the Zone are stripped of all romantic capability. Or, in short, the Friend Zone is how a close friend of yours (usually of the opposite sex) looks at you after they have determined that they could never, ever date you. Most of the time you can tell when you have entered someone's Friend Zone by the utterance of a few key phrases. These include:
"You're like a brother to me."
"I think friendships are so much better than relationships. Don't you?"
"I could never do anything that could ruin our friendship."
My guess is that the overwhelming majority of those reading this blog have encountered one or more of the above on at least a couple of occasions. If you have, feel free to take a minute to gouge at your own flesh in remembered frustration. I can wait.
Once again, it is very important for me now to establish for good and all the gender differential at work here. In keeping with the somewhat more popular perceptions of the Friend Zone, I have found that the overwhelming majority of adherents to the concept are girls. I won't attempt to tackle the complex psychological issues at work in that fact, but suffice it to say that I have found the Friend Zone to be a tool largely wielded by females, and I will treat it as such. If that case does not work for you, feel free to switch the gender approach to the argument; you'll find that it works exactly the same.
It is a great curiousity to me that many girls, the same ones who are avid supporters of the Friend Zone, often complain about guys. There is no general type of complaint that comes to mind in particular, rather the whole field of them that strikes me, and they are many-varied. All guys are assholes. There are no good guys. Why are all boys cheaters? All boys care about is sex. This boyfriend/ex-boyfriend doesn't really care about my feelings. He forgot my birthday. He forgot our anniversary. He hooked up with my roommate/sister/mom/pet cat... There are tons of them, and I only just hit the very basics.
On the surface, these seem like fully legitimate complaints. I know that if I were a girl and no matter how I tried I couldn't find a half-way decent man, I would need to vent about it, too. The problem is that at the same time these girls would like to complain about all their guy troubles, they are continuously shooting themselves in the foot. For, as it turns out (and this is the best part), the people they are often complaining to are guys. Guys who are their friends. Guys they have locked away in the Friend Zone.
To this I pose a question to all you lovely ladies. And bear in mind that I mean this as respectfully as I possibly can.
Are you out of your fucking minds!?
Let me explain what I mean from the beginning. Suppose there is a girl who is single and looking, and two guys, who we will call Good Guy and Bad Guy. Good Guy is funny, attentive, respectful, smart, and interesting. Bad Guy is a drug addict, a known cheater, and eats kittens just for spite. Girl meets Good Guy and instantly senses the goodness within him. So they start to hang out. They have a great time and enrich each others' lives immensely every time they are together. Until one day, Good Guy tells Girl that he is awed and joyful at how well they work together, and he suggests that they take things to the next level. Good Girl, however, thinks that he could be right, but she also recognizes that relationships are not as stable as friendships simply by virtue of how deep they are. She knows that if they do become more, there is a chance that in the future it could all come crashing down. So she tells him, "I'm sorry, but I don't want to do anything that could ruin our friendship." Welcome to the Friend Zone, Good Guy.
Meanwhile, Girl has met Bad Guy. They don't see each other all that much, and when they are together Girl is ansy, uncomfortable. She doesn't quite get it, either. After all, Bad Guy is really hot and quite charming, but even so she doesn't feel quite right with him. When Bad Guy asks her out, however, she does her best to stow away her misgivings and give it a shot. Because, hell, it's not like there is anything really on the line. Despite her flippant attitude, though, Girl ends up dating Bad Guy for several months. Theirs is a rocky relationship, but at least they have each other, and whenever Bad Guy blows her off or takes advantage of her, Girl does have Good Guy to go to for emotional support. When the day finally comes that Bad Guy dumps her, Girl is the only one who is surprised, and she is pretty much emotionally destroyed by it. But, thank God, she can still run to Good Guy and cry on his shoulder. After all, she knows that her good friend will always be there for her.
Sound familiar?
When you look at it like this, the absurdity of the Friend Zone snaps into focus. Virtually all of a girl's friends are good guys, just the sort of guys that she would love to be with, who already care about and love her for who she is. THAT'S WHY THEY ARE HER FRIENDS. Girls, you have a perfectly functional source of good guys to date. It is called your friends.
This is why I am always astounded whenever a girl uses the rationale "He and I could never date, he's my friend!" to justify not being with a guy. It's lunacy. As it turns out, your friends are the first place you should go to look for a significant other, not the last.
Tell me that this makes at least a little sense to you.
I can understand the underlying rationale behind the Friend Zone. It comes from fear. Relationships are the gamble, and a Friend is not a gambling man. To hell with that. Yes, if you date someone who you are already friends with, you run the risk of losing that person. There's nothing wrong with that. And really, what's the alternative? Dating someone you don't care about? Bad call. Everything worth anything in this world is a risk, and you can never win anything if you don't put up anything to lose.
The idea of the Friend Zone is rooted in the most virile of pessimism; you see everything that you might lose but not what you stand to gain. But the beauty of the thing is that it doesn't have to be that way. In the same sense that a friendship-turned-relationship might crash and burn, it might soar like nothing else you've ever known. It might be incredible. Because, honestly, if a friendship with a guy is that great, think about how utterly amazing it could be if that friendship grew into more. Think about that. Keep it in mind the next time you think about how you feel towards a certain good guy friend. Keep it in mind when he pours his heart out to you. Imagine what wonder could come of it. And before you tell him that you're just friends and only ever friends, stop for a minute and think about what you're saying. You never know.
It might just be worth the risk.
posted by Will Jones at 8:07 AM
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