comedylove and dating

Highway to the Friendzone

Welcome To The Friendzone!

It sounds like more fun than it is.  It sounds like there will be a waterslide.  There is no waterslide, just hurt feelings.

What Does It Mean?

The nicest definition of the Friendzone is: two people meet.  One person is interested in the other person romantically.  The other person is not interested, but says they want to be friends.

Why Does It Happen?

Sometimes that person doesn’t really want to be friends, but it’s easier to say that than to make up a boyfriend or to say “I have no space for you in my life, and I’m not going to return your texts.”

Sometimes two people will go on a few dates before one person will say “I like you as a friend.” 

Women are trained to be polite and deferential to men, and not to say things like “I don’t find you attractive.” 

Also, women are worried that if we are crystal clear that we are not interested in sex, men will stop talking to us, because we are only worthy as a sexual partner/conquest/etc.

It Happens To Everyone

One of the hardest things about being a person with feelings is: sometimes those feelings are not reciprocated.  

This happens to everyone, even Johnny Depp and Ariana Grande.  Everyone.  Everyone you know has liked someone who did not like them back.  President Obama.  Channing Tatum.  That lady on TikTok who is famous for her butt.  Everyone.

Sometimes men will complain about being Friendzoned.  It doesn’t sound so bad, except when you start peeling the first onion layer you find a really misogynist onion.

Fallacies of Friendzoning-First Men, Then Women:
I met someone I am attracted to.  There’s a fifty-fifty shot that she’ll choose me. 

It’s actually a lot lower than that.  If women slept with everyone who wanted to sleep with us, we’d never get anything else done, like laundry or higher education. 

The Friendzone is the default zone.  Almost everyone goes there.  It’s not so bad.  We like you, we value your company.  We just don’t want to date you.

There’s something I could have done or said that would have kept me out of the Friendzone.

I’ve heard several versions of this- if a man didn’t act dominant or aggressive enough, a woman would stop thinking of him as a romantic partner.  This happens with snakes and prey- if you drop a mouse into a cage with a snake who’s just eaten, the snake will get used to the mouse, and just cohabitate with it and will never get around to eating it.

This attitude heaps guilt on the rejected party.  Probably there wasn’t anything you could have done.  You’re just not the guy she likes.  Science says it might be as much smell as anything, so it doesn’t matter what bands you put on a Spotify mix for her or whether you were wearing your nicest Scarface shirt that day.  

Every Day Is A New Day

If it makes you feel better to think you could have done something different, maybe try that approach next time, but if the chemistry doesn’t go both ways, you’re gonna be right back in the Friendzone.

Jerks Always Get The Girl, Nice Guys Like Me Get Friendzoned.

Well- if you feel entitled to have sex with everyone you like, or if you’re a good friend to a girl you deserve sex- you’re also a jerk!  You’re just a jerk she doesn’t like.

If you don’t want to be her friend, don’t. 

If you’re only being her friend in case one night she decides to sleep with you, don’t.  Be her friend because you think she’s cool and you like her company.  If you liked her so much, but not enough to be her friend: what did you like about her?

Women and Friendzoning:

Whenever a guy I liked didn’t like me, I assumed that either I was too fat or he was threatened that I was smarter than he was.  It depended on how I was feeling that day.  I never blamed him for not liking me back, and I never said “MAN IF I’D BEEN AGGRESSIVE I WOULDN’T BE IN THIS STUPID FRIENDZONE.”

Pretty in Pink Friendzoning:

In the film Pretty in Pink, Duckie is Friendzoned by Andie.  He spends the movie romantically pining and pretending that she doesn’t know that he’s interested in her.  When he freaks out on her for being on a date, it’s clear that she’s known all along. 

The audience sides with him in the movie and wants him to get the girl, even though she has never acted interested in him.  “But he’s been such a good friend to her!” So what?  She’s a good friend to him, too.  Why is his time worth her sexual interest?  And in the end he was just as interested in a random blonde at prom, anyway.

Jon Hamm Friendzoning Me:

Because I am a Hollywood type person with a modern a go-go lifestyle, last Wednesday I was in a room with Mad Men’s Jon Hamm.

  He is incredibly handsome.  We had a brief exchange, I was friendly, I was charming, I was wearing a dress and everything, but he treated me as a friend, or as a stranger at a comedy show.  That’s right: I was friendzoned by Jon Hamm, which is HORSEFEATHERS because I KNOW HE DOESN’T HAVE A GIRLFRIEND RIGHT NOW.   I WOULD BE SO NICE TO YOU JON HAMM.

Crossed signals happen to everyone.  Stop talking about the friendzone.  Be as honest, kind, and open as you can, and also dress up when you go out, because people like that.

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