Because instead of accepting that someone may not find you relationship material, the “friend zone” theories seem to be claiming that she would have if only she didn’t have such weird, arcane, and hard-to-comprehend-for-us-poor-men rules.
It’s “She isn’t attracted to me/I’ve never told her how I feel” versus “She has a whole system set up and I’m doomed never to get out of it because I didn’t do precisely the right thing at the right time and now her rules will always prevent me from finding happiness even though I’m sure she would have found me so attractive if only…” *
Hm. I use it a bit differently in that the reason why doesn’t matter; the fact that there’s no longer a chance of a relationship, for whatever reason, does.
But then, I stray perilously close to Nice Guy territory even though I try to avoid falling in that particular pit, so it’s possible there’s overlap in behavior and terminology.
Well, I shouldn’t claim (and I think my post made it sound like I was claiming) that everyone who uses the term means it that way. But there are some who seem to.
I think the idea of “being exiled to the friend zone” implies that in friendships with women, **all *women, there’s a period of time where they may want to date you. That assumption is incorrect. A lot of times, she just doesn’t feel a romantic/sexual/something-more-than-friends attraction for you, and that’s all there is to it. You’re always a friend, just a friend, since the spark isn’t there - there was no magical window of time where you could have pitched woo and succeeded if only you’d known.
Sometimes you’re just friends. And that’s fun too. That’s why I never understand “Nice Guys” - they treat friendship like it’s not worth anything.
*Generic “you”.
What friendship? I don’t have any available female friends I’m interested in. Did you presume I did?
In what way is it wishy washy to ask whether the friend zone exists or if it simply means the woman was never interested in the first place?
If you want to impart your hardnosed wisdom, you could start by answering whether there is a period of time beyond which one is just a friend or whether there is no such thing and it just means she wasn’t interested.
Okay, that does make a lot of sense and hits the nail on the head pretty hard.
I’ll answer that, because what the hell, I feel like airing my insecurities today. At least in my personal situation, it’s not that I don’t value friendship, but right now I value having a relationship far, far above it. That’s only partly a conscious choice; right now I’m pretty much incapable of seeing single female acquaintances as friends rather than potential partners. I’m quite certain that if I had a partner, I could relax and just be friends. But of course, that insecurity in itself is not attractive, and I’m quite certain it colors my behavior regardless of how I try to correct for it.
That all is entirely on me, of course, and it’s something I’ve been trying to work on. I’ve been told by confidants…several times…that I need to focus on friends first and let relationships come later, but overcoming that drive is a Sisyphean task.
Still, I hadn’t considered that using “the Friend Zone” was an expression of that insecurity, or at least I’d been able to rationalize it away until now. Good food for thought.
It is not uncommon for a person to become friends with someone they are interested in and hope that by waiting, at some point the friendship will somehow morph into a relationship. Here, the friendship is based on the potential of a future relationship. Often, the other person has already decided whether or not they would consider dating you. All you have done is created a long, drawn out and unecessary courtship.
To answer the OPs questions:
I do not believe that waiting a long time to ask someone out prevents dating. It is very possible that mutual interest exists. But in the event it does not, you are in the friendzone.
It’s also possible that some prefer to be friends before they start dating. But again, you are not going to know whether mutual interest exists until you are already friends. If things work out, that’s fabulous. If things do not, you are in the friendzone.
If a man has been friends with a woman for a while, the way he signals he wants to be more than friends is by telling her he wants to be more than just friends. I can’t stress this enough. It is really that simple.
jsgoddess touched on the general point I was trying to make, but “ladder theory” holds that when you get to know a woman for the first time, she puts you on one of two “ladders”. One is for dating material, the other for friends. Once on the “friends” ladder, you can’t move over to the other ladder.
Now, ladder theory was probably conceived as a bit of a lark, but I know that I once felt that way (when I was in my early 20’s, and had yet to have a relationship with a girl). While this may be true in some cases, there are also plenty of cases where a girl might not find a guy initially appealing but learns to love him over time.
The real problem with such theories is not that they aren’t ever true, but that it takes the guy’s sexual frustrations and blames it solely on women for placing them on the “friend” ladder. “If it only wasn’t for that damn ladder, I would be fucking mad chicks, yo!” Never mind that you can’t even call up the guts to ask a girl for coffee, let alone a serious date.
You built comfort and trust before you built any sexual attraction so she sees you as sexually attractive as her brother or girlfriends.
You’re playing “Surprise, I have a penis!! :D” out of nowhere, which means she has to suddenly re-evaluate the friendship and because she doesn’t see you as someone she has sexual chemistry with, this is too big an adjustment for her so she says she just wants to be friends as a way of letting you down nicely.
You get chicken-shit because you built the relationship up in your head, so when you make sexual advances on her they’re half-assed and nervous because you’re counting this moment as the epic life-changing defining moment of the universe after years of anticipation and build-up, and this needy desperate vibe comes through to the girl.
Generally it’s girls that say this because they’re answering with what they logically think would be best for them (to be able to analyze a guy from all angles before deciding if they’ll date him) when in reality they put those guys into the friend zone because for some reason they just don’t get them wet the way that brash “bad boy” she has all the sexual chemistry with does. She’ll then complain about that guy when he breaks her heart, TO the nice guy in the friend zone.
The other people that say they prefer to be friends first tend to be guys who aren’t getting laid who are justifying not making moves on girls they like and will probably respond to this post saying I’m a jerk for saying that.
Don’t listen to women’s advice on attracting women. They mean well, but what they logically say they want and what they emotionally respond to are two different things and only a VERY small percentage notice and acknowledge the cognitive dissonance.
Odds are she actually made a move on you at some point but you missed the signs because as guys we don’t notice those things or talk ourselves out of them. If a girl throws herself at you and you don’t reciprocate, you’ve just inadvertantly rejected her and once that window of opportunity is closed it generally won’t open again. Usually this window is near the start of when you two first met and you were being a nice guy and taking it slow and talking yourself out of her obvious cues.
She doesn’t see you as a sexual being so you have to start dropping in sexual conversation topics slowly over time. They don’t have to be about you, but you have to be able to talk about sex with her in general once in a while because in the friend zone you have no penis. Way down the road she may come to see you as a sexual being.
“I never realized you were (insert something she does, says, wears, etc.) that’s so sexy/hot! ;)” This gives a basis for the change in relationship. Like you weren’t into her before, but now that you know she likes such and such hobby, or now that you know she can do such and such thing, or now that you know she looks good wearing such and such clothes, NOW you see her as sexy…then logically if you had noticed that at the beginning you would have made a move, so you get around the fact that you haven’t made a move till now.
It’s a million times easier to just go find new girls. There are plenty of them out there, and they are all wonderful and awesome and would love to meet you. And odds are a handful of those girls look exactly like the one you’re in the friend zone with.
TheWhoToTheWhatNow, is this some kind of Pick Up Artist shit?
Comfort and trust are 100% vital to me for me to consider someone as a potential partner. Without them, I’m not interested.
Nope, I definitely am aware that all my heterosexual male friends are heterosexual men, and may have the potential to be interested in me especially if they are single. It’s only if they start harassing me that I’ll “re-evaluate” anything.
“Bad boy” my ass. Attraction doesn’t have anything to do with this. Some people are attractive and some aren’t, and some people may not be immediately physically attractive to me but become more so with time.
Don’t listen to men who like to categorize “women” as a monolithic group, and play to the stereotype that we are controlled by our “emotions” which are against “logic”. If you see women in this way, that may be the reason why you fail at attracting us; because you are not considering us mature and responsible for our own actions.
If you do this on purpose it’s creepy and obvious, and a big turn-off.
Oh I don’t fail at it. That’s why I’m giving advice. I suspect I’ve picked up more straight women than you but you never know.
Emotions influence a woman’s decisions immensely. I don’t have a problem with it at all, it’s what makes a woman feminine but for guys needing advice about the friend zone it can be confusing to listen to bad advice like “talking about sex with females is creepy and a turn-off”
Thank you! Outside of everyone being in open relationships or practicing polygamy, this is going to happen, at some point, to everyone. And if you are the type of person who considers being friends a consolation prize, well, you are likely just confirming the judgment of your object of desire.
I think this is mostly correct. I’ve never experienced being attracted to a friend at first but then losing sexual/romantic interest in him because of the length of time we’ve been friends. (Although I might become unwilling to sleep with him over time for different reasons.)
The difference, I think, is whether the two people were ever genuinely friends or not. As I see it, the “Friend Zone” is describing the situation of a man who is essentially pretending to be a woman’s friend while hiding the fact that he actually wants a sexual relationship.
You’re right, you probably have picked up more straight women than I have. I’ve picked up some gay women though.
Picked up = had meaningful relationships with?
Emotions influence everyone’s decisions.
Talking about sex with [del]females[/del] women isn’t creepy or a turn-off. Deliberately inserting sexual references into otherwise non-sex-related conversations to try and make a woman see you as a sexual person is creepy and a turn-off. I remember that from some of the Pick Up Artist tips I’ve read on the internet, and that’s what cued me in.
I will tell you what the Pick Up Artist stuff does quite well, though. It is quite good at signaling to women that you are interested in having sex with them, because it’s quite transparent. Trying to turn a friendship into something deeper however requires actual interest in women as people rather than emotional lesser beings you can use and throw away.
The dreaded “friend zone” is the hell that “nice guys” put themselves in. Guy who who can’t be direct, so they attempt to form a relationship by not forming one. They willingly become another “girlfriend” to the girl and hope that she’ll make the first move.
Of course, they really aren’t “nice” because it’s attempting to manipulate others. They are seemingly offering one thing, friendship, but really wanted to be considered for something else, a boyfriend / partner. Rather than risk getting shot down because they don’t have courage, they try to be friends because it’s safer, then do super “nice” things, hoping she notice what a prince he is after all.
Or something like that. Reformed “nice guy” here. I went though high school like that, with hanging around girls I hope to date, but lacked the courage / confidence to just ask them.
As others have said, there are no monolithic “women” or “men” or even “nice guys” out there.
There are plenty of them out there, and they are all wonderful and awesome and would love to meet you. And odds are a handful of those girls look exactly like the one you’re in the friend zone with.