Hey, Chicago readers: If you can make it up to Evanston this Monday, I’ll be giving a talk titled “Escape from the Planet of the Friend Zone,” exploring some of the mythology of this dreaded place. The talk, like my talk two years ago, will be part of Northwestern’s Annual Sex Week, sponsored by the College Feminists. (The talk itself is cosponsored by NU’s Men Against Rape and Sexual Assault.)
It’s at 7 PM in Kresge Hall 4365, which is on the Southern end of campus, near “the rock.” (Here’s a map.) If you’re taking the el, get off at the Foster stop and head east; then a little ways south when you hit campus. I’ll check about parking for non-students and provide details later.
The last time I gave a talk during Northwestern’s Sex Week, some MRAs got a little overexcited and started making up things about what they assumed my talk was about. (They were wrong.) So, just to make clear: I will not be teaching impressionable college students “how to have good sex,” except insofar as I will be talking about how sexist and self-defeating the concept of the Friend Zone is, which means it’s possible that some dude could attend the lecture and decide to stop whining about getting stuck in the Friend Zone, and thus improve his romantic and sexual prospects with that one simple step.
I haven’t finished writing the talk yet, so if any of you have any thoughts on the Friend Zone — or the closely related topic of the “nice guy” — let me know in the comments below.
I’m also curious about what role the concept of the Friend Zone plays in your everyday lives, so I’m going to spit out a bunch of questions that I may address in the talk and may ask the students as well. I’d be interested in your answers.
Have you ever been put in a situation that you or other people might describe as the Friend Zone? Whose fault do you think it was? Have you ever been accused of putting someone else in the Friend Zone? Did you find this insulting? Has someone else, through their own obsequiousness, put themselves in the Friend Zone with you?
Is the Friend Zone a male thing or are there a significant number of women and girls who find themselves friendzoned as well?
Does the notion of the Friend Zone grow out of male entitlement? Is it a fundamentally manipulative to try to pressure a woman into romance and sex? Or does it grow out of male awkwardness — the inherently difficult situation of shy or perhaps socially awkward guys who are still nonetheless expected to be the ones who pursue women rather than the other way around, as MRA types might argue?
When did the term start getting used? The concept is certainly not new, but I don’t think the term is that old. When did you all first start hearing it?
How can guys (or gals) get out of the Friend Zone?
Can a Friend Zone situation — by which I mean one in which one person is romantically interested and the other isn’t — be transformed into a real friendship, or will the different feelings/expectations of the two people make this impossible?
Alternately, can a Friend Zone situation turn into a real romance?
Is the Friend Zone really a useful concept at all? There are very few relationships — platonic, romantic or purely sexual — in which each partner feels the exact same way about the other. There are mismatches all the time. Shouldn’t we just learn to roll with it? Maybe the answer to the old When Harry Met Sally question — can a man be friends with a woman he’s attracted to? — is, “why the hell not?”
G’day, Cthulhu’s Intern! I just saw a comment of yours on an old Dr Nerdlove thread. đŸ™‚
BTW, I’m pretty sure “ztime” posted the following on Reddit as /u/Cupcake_Fries:
Source.
Hey, kitteh. Yeah, I do post there sporadically, even moreso than here (busy with the whole college thing…) because my knowledge on the main subject there, I’ll admit is a bit limited.
So, um, I sometimes work with celebrities, some of whom are very attractive men. Even they don’t get to have sex with 60-70% of the women they meet, because homo sapiens and bonobos are not the same species.
Thanks everyone! This is all really, really useful. I’ve been kind of going through the mythology of the firend zone — looking at a lot of memes, etc — and it’s really interesting to see the vast difference between the memes and reality.
I know that’s a bit vague, but I’m still pulling my thoughts together.
Cloudiah, I like that the misters managed to link to that WF price piece in which … he just made up shit about what my talk 2 years ago was about. even after I mentioned in this post that it was full of shit.
MRA dudes, I didn’t “teach good sex;” I talked about you assholes.
I also love the mister’s reaction “oh, he doesn’t have anything better to do.” Dudes, my last talk at NU drew more people than that MRA rally in Toronto.
David, my 2 cents is that I hope you keep mentioning that these assholes exist, but in the context of most men & women being decent human beings, which is what I really believe. Which is also why your last talk drew more people that the Toronto MRA rally.
Seriously, I’ve been looking for them, and while I’ve found examples of sexism in my daily life I have found no evidence of people actively defending sexism (i.e. MRAs).
I am on my phone, so will write something short now, but maybe write a longer email if I get time.
As a woman, I have been “friend zoned” and I don’t mind. I find it hard to maintain a crush on someone unless there is a part of their personality I admire, so if they want to be friends with me (but don’t want to go out with me) huge win for me: I get to hang out with fun people. Also, some people can loose a crush over a few weeks, but for me it is much longer if i dont have closure. If I know definitely someone isn’t interested in me, then for some reason my brain rewires over a few weeks … so “friend zoning” can also mean a relief from feeling mopey.
Also, I have asked people I liked if they liked me, but always made sure I left a clearly marked way for them to say “no” (including “no for unspecified reasons” which I will happily go make up cool acceptable reasons for). In some other cases where guys have either asked me out or decided we were going out without telling me (!!!), I got the distinct feeling that “no” was not an acceptable option and I had to justify the “no” acceptably … which made me feel very anxious. For example, in one case I said “no” because I was very depressed at the time and didn’t want anyone seeing how much crying I did, but I didn’t want to say that as this person had friends taking a unit I was tutoring.
I have definitely been waaaay into someone who showed zero signs of reciprocating, and it sucks! Typically I make the first official move– I am not sure why, but that’s how most of my relationships have started. But I don’t do it if there aren’t any signs that there is romantic interest on the other side. A shine in the eyes, blushing, a bit of flirtation, certain kinds of body language, a certain tone of voice… you know, a vibe. It’s different than between normal friends who don’t have a thing for each other, but it is hard to quantify.
Anyway, sometimes I have been totally into someone but there was just not anything that even my most fantastical wishful thinking could construe as romantic interest. In that case, I have done my best to accept that he just wasn’t into me and move on being friends, or friendly acquaintances or whatever.
It hasn’t always worked, though.
Sometimes I’d rationalize the implicit rejection by imagining Mr. Gorgeous Genius was holding out for the second coming of Grace Kelly, and when he’d start dating someone… um… *not* Grace Kellyesque at all, I would get all snarky and crabby about it.
Me: “She has a repellent personality and weird BO!”
Girlfriend: “Sure, I don’t want to go on a weeklong camping trip with her, but who cares, they both seem happy?”
Me: “Um, I only care because he is my FRIEND.”
Girlfriend: “uh huh.”
I’d like to think I am muuuuch more mature now and would handle that situation with much more grace and respect… but knowing me, probably not. đŸ˜€
I think the best thing to do is make some space and do your own thing til the craziness subsides. The worst thing you can do is hang around nursing a litter of “what-ifs.”
Total waste of time, energy, and life. Plus it’s a good way to make embarrassing memories in a moment of weakness that you can cringe at for a lifetime!
On the flip side, I have also had people be into me and known I could not reciprocate. I try to make it clear that I’m not interested. The thing about being the romantically un-interested party, though, is that you usually spend a lot less time thinking about the other person than he/she thinks about you, so it can be easy to sort of zone out and pay not that much attention to what’s going on with them unless they get busted peering through your bedroom windows at 1AM or something over-the-top like that. ahem
For people who are really secure and mature it is probably very possible to have a genuine, non-messed-up friendship between a “limerent” and a non-limerent. If the romantically interested party can refrain from feeding the “what if” monster and the uninterested party can refrain from stringing the other along for personal gratification, I think it can work.
but for those of us who are not that cool and evolved yet, probably better to back off til a couple years have passed under the bridge. No shame in that.
A whole collection of pieces on the Nice Guy concept:
http://heartless-bitches.com/rants/niceguys/ng.shtml
So “the Friend Zone” — the term anyway — may have originated on Friends? Interesting. There are entries for the term from as far back as 2003 on Urban Dictionary, so that makes sense. EIther Friends came up with it or it was something people were starting to talk about around then.
An unsourced statement on Wikipedia says that it’s a reference to the Twilight Zone: Basically, like the show is about people in weird situations and mainly about the feeling of being trapped, the idea of the Friend Zone is being “trapped” in friendship.
It was in the very first season of Friends, so that might have been ’94 or ’95? It does seem like the term only took off in the last few years though.
I found the clip!
But that clip implies that it existed before then, since Ross knows exactly what he’s talking about when he says the “friend zone” and even says “the zone.”
I would like to offer some points for consideration. I have no moral opinon on the friend zone. But I think it is different to both sexes.
I don’t think that anyone has clearly defined the friendzone. It may mean different things to different people and there isnt really a measure of it being referred to here.
I believe the friend zone for males refers to refers to women who do not want the same sexuak romantic relationship the man is pursuing.
Although i believe this is not an exhaustive claim on the state of affairs , I think that if a man is pursuing a women, and the woman knows that the man is attracted and interested, and the woman maintains the relationship in such a way, that the man believes he has an opportunity to achieve a romantic/sexual
relationship, there is guilt due for woman’s knowledge and guilt due for the mans ignorance or lack of judgment. To whatever degree either one applies.
Yes it can go either way. But I think women are far more interestd in knowingly surrounding themselves with possible suitors and not having sex than men are.
Yes, but that’s as far as I know the first known reference to it. I interpreted as Ross having a strong negative reaction to the concept of the friend zone because it isn’t what he wants to hear. It also could be that it in Friends universe it’s a known term, but it wasn’t know in the real world until the show introduced it.
I feel weird analyzing Friends this much :/
Will you be making a video/sound file/transcript of this talk available for those who cannot attend?
Straight cis-woman here. Personally, I feel extremely uncomfortable about being romantic with a man with whom I do not already have a good friendship. I just can’t do the shallow sex. It’s not in my nature. So, if someone “friend zones” you, perhaps you can look at this as an opportunity, rather than a brush off. After all, if I were completely uninterested in EVER getting with you, I’d probably just tell you to beat it, completely, rather than trying to be friends with you. If there is friendship, there is hope that you can become lovers, someday. But then again, there is also the hope that you can become best friends, as well. Or possibly even both. It’s not limiting, at all. It’s opening up way more options than the simple lover/enemy dichotomy that so many MRAs seem to think exists as the only way men and women can relate. I view the Friend Zone as a good thing. With me, it is the ONLY way to ever reach a romantic relationship with me, anyway.
And yes, I have been friend zoned by males. Guess what? I made good friends, and enjoyed their company as such, because I DO believe that men and women can be true friends, with or without the romantic element. Do you think that lesbian women can never be platonic friends with other women? Of course, they can! And gay men can be platonic friends with other men. Brothers-in-arms close, even. Human beings are far more than merely their sex or their sexual relations. They are created to form loving bonds of family, friendship, AND romantic natures. So, if the romance doesn’t work out at the exact time you want it to, why not embrace the friendship? It could be the most amazing friendship you’ve ever had. And you never know. Some day, if the timing and circumstances are favorable, it may blossom into romance, after all. And if it does not blossom into romance, you still have a fantastic friendship! It’s a win-win, really, if you look at it with a positive attitude.
Mind you, pretending to be a friend, in the hope of later seducing the woman is just a lousy thing to do. Be friends for real or leave the person alone. If you want more, be up front about it. “I am interested in a romance with you, but I’ll respect your boundaries and appreciate the friendship for what it is.” If all you’re after is sex, be up front about that, too. Honesty is best. You might be surprised at the response.
Good luck with your speech!
I think the line between friend-zone and ‘unrequited crush’ is pretty wide and grey – it all looks very similar on the outside, but it’s what people are thinking, feeling, and doing about those that count. I’ve had unrequited crushes and I’d had relationships where I had been friend-zoned, and each type was different only in how I felt when I met them; crushes tend to happen when I’m happy & enjoying life while being friend-zoned happened when I was feeling desperate and lonely.
It seems pretty obvious in retrospect, I know, but it took me a long time to realize that If I was feeling particularly lonely when I met someone, then I was way more likely to feel sad and frustrated, and yeah, even resentful if they weren’t interested; those crushes I classify as being friend-zoned. I didn’t want to be just a friend, and it was really difficult to talk myself down from being angry with them for something they didn’t do. Generally, I don’t find those friends tend to last – once the giddiness recedes, so does their attractiveness on most levels, sigh.
I think it’s the rush of hormones; like ceebarks, now when I feel myself tumbling, I tend to avoid the person I’m crushing on till I can get my emotions calmed down and avoid the ‘what-if’ games.
NewJim,
You’re making some pretty big assumptions here. The first is that men like casual sex and women don’t. That isn’t necessarily true. It depends on the individual.
You also seem to be assuming that women intentionally friend zone men while leading them on to get an ego boost. There are probably a few women (and men) who do this, but in general, I don’t think that’s true. Contrary to popular belief, women don’t have magical mind reading powers. If a guy friend doesn’t explicitly express interest in a sexual or romantic relationship we’re probably thinking he’s content with a platonic relationship. It isn’t manipulative to treat a man as a friend if he is acting like a friend is it?
So, clearly Jim is too heavily invested in rather rigid ideas about gender roles to answer this question, but since I see this assumption a lot…why would women want to surround themselves with men who want to have sex with them just so they can not have sex with those men? What are the women supposed to be getting out of that scenario? Guys who believe this stuff, write down everything that you think women are getting out of that, and then read it back to yourself aloud. You’ll pretty quickly realize that the whole idea rests on the assumption that women are both evil and fundamentally asexual. Is that really what you believe, or are you just telling yourself these things because they provide you with a nice emotional band-aid and protect you from thinking about things that might hurt, like why a particular woman really wasn’t interested in dating you?
I may be grumpy through lack of sleep but here’s my tak on things:
The Friend Zone doesn’t exist other than as an attempt to yet again make everything about the Menz and to once more reduce women’s ability to say no to sex, as demonstrated so ably by both NewJim and Tarnished’s links.
People have freindships that develop into sexual relationships, people have sexual relationships that develop into friendships, people have friendships which they wish would become sexual but never do. Relationships change. But that isn’t the Friend Zone myth.
The Friend Zone myth is all about removing women’s autonomy through social pressure. It is saying that refusing a man who has made certain gestures towards you, whether you welcomed those gestures or not, is a bad thing. It is saying that accepting a man as a friend or acquaintance is consent, in society’s eyes – as demonstrated by society’s attitude towards acquaintance rape.
And it is saying that, having told women since childhood that they must prioritise men’s feelings, that they must let men down gently when refusing, that now there is yet one less way of doing that, because the famous phrase “Can’t we just be friends?” is now a bad bad thing.
So, yep, thanks, Tarnished, for your second link, demonstrating once again that the most important thing is the feeling of the Menz, that the feelings (and bodily autonomy) of women must always be ignored in favour of thinking about the important Menz feelings. That women must govern their behaviour not around how a man is making them feel but how the woman’s reaction to that man’s behaviour will make the man feel. Big news. Never realised that before. /snark
And thanks New Jim for demonstrating your utter contempt for women. I’m sure David will take that into consideration in his talk.
Titianblue,
You weren’t being unreasonably grumpy at all! I didn’t click on that link until you said something about it, and it was a hot mess.
Definitely an occasion to bust out my favorite Margaret Atwood quote for the millionth time:
That quote captures perfectly the reason we don’t need to let creepers down gently. My personal sense of safety is more important than the fee fees of a random guy in a bar or on the bus. I make no apologies for that. Don’t tell us that a polite but firm “no” with a hug (!) will ensure that a creepy guy will fade away and leave us alone with no hard feelings. Excuse me for the all caps yell, but THAT’S NOT TRUE! I wish it were, but all too often they do not take no for an answer.
Tarnished, you need to stop making the victims of harassment the ones responsible for alleviating harassment. Socially awkward is not an excuse. I say that as a socially awkward person. Nerdy guys are perfectly capable of reading up on etiquette and learning about how not to violate boundaries. Also, as the sibling of the man with autism, I am offended that that was brought up as an excuse. Autism does not cause someone to become a creep or a harasser. Autistic people have enough trouble navigating social situations without this stereotype I’ve seen introduced lately. Stop trying to hide behind disabled people when you want to purposely violate a woman’s boundaries. That’s fucking despicable.
Sorry this turned into a bit of a rant. I drank 4 glasses of wine tonight, so I’m sure I got a bit rambley!
titianblue, that’s exactly what I was about to write, but you did it better.
Friend Zone is all about male entitlement. How dare a woman he wants to fuck refuse him!
I haven’t caught up with the latest trolls. I don’t think I’ve the patience to bother scrolling back to their predictable crap … I’ve just read some very long Dr Nerdlove threads where the slimeballs were out defending the Poor NiceGuys(TM) and I don’t need the deja vu.
This. Being surrounded by men I know want to fuck me (and it’s a given that I wouldn’t want to fuck them) would be incredibly uncomfortable at best and creepy, gross and frightening at worst.
Oops. Sibling of a man, not sibling of the man. Oh, pinot grigio!