The Friend Zone is a Misogynistic Delusion

Emily Liu

The Friend Zone is a Misogynistic Delusion There seems to be a common notion among todays younger generations that there is a genuine problem with boys and girls just being friends. There are people who believe that friendship between a man and a woman is a sad, pathetic thing that implies that the man wasnt masculine enough to make it something more than that. There are 240 million results on google for the term, friend zone. The first definition on Urban Dictionary, a popular online slang dictionary, of friend zone is, What you attain after you fail to impress a woman you're attracted to. Now, females and males alike have experienced being interested in someone who only sees you as a platonic friend. However, in popular culture, the term friend zone is now almost singularly being applied as something done to men by women. The movie Just Friends explains friend zoning with the line, See, when a girl decides that youre her friend, youre no longer a dating option. You become this complete non-sexual entity in her eyes, like her brother, or a lamp. This term and belief is not only absurd, but also eminently misogynistic. It is nothing more than an excuse some rejected men use to avoid the fact that some women simply are not romantically attracted to them and to put the blame on the women for saying no. Guys who claim theyre in the friend zone often feel that females owe them a romantic relationship or sex because they treated the girl genially. The idea of friend zoning is a sexist, misogynistic delusion used by rejected men who cant take no for an answer. First, let us examine the biological aspects of attraction. Limerence is a state of mind which results from a romantic attraction to another person that is often accompanied by the desire for a reciprocation of feelings. Michael Stevens, the man behind Vsauce, a well-known, scientific Youtube channel, describes limerence as what you feel when you have a crush on someone. Now obviously, these feelings cannot always be returned. Some people just arent

attracted to certain people who are attracted to them. Now, why exactly are females perceived to be choosier in most cases? Batemans principle is the theory that females almost always invest more energy in producing offspring than males, and therefore in most species females are a limiting resource which males will compete over. A males potential reproductive success is thus limited by the number of females he mates with, whereas a females potential reproductive success is limited by how many eggs she can produce. This results in sexual selection, in which males compete with each other, and females become choosy in which males to mate with. A third term vital to this topic is homogamy, which is generally being attracted to someone who is similar or compatible with you. Because of how infatuated you are with a person, you may be blinded to how incompatible or dissimilar you are in reality. Attraction isnt something that you can force. As proven from a completely scientific standpoint, females are naturally selective and want to mate with someone who is similar or compatible with them. The word friend zone puts the blame on a woman for using her right to say no. There is never an obligation to return romantic interest. A female is not heinous for rejecting a guy because she sees her friend as just thata friend. Aeryn Walker expressed this idea remarkably when she said, Friend zoning is [rubbish] because girls are not machines that you put kindness coins into until sex falls out. The friend zone is misogynistic because believing that a woman owes sexual or romantic favors automatically portrays women as subservient creatures and dismisses their right to make decisions about relationships and sex. To antagonize a woman for rejecting a man and considering him only a friend is sexist. In addition, the friend zone subliminally suggests that all women are good for is sex. Some men often lament the time wasted being friends with a woman when they are romantically rejected at the end, suggesting that sex is really the only thing he was ever after. In one of his stand-up routines, Chris Rock

once said, Men don't have platonic friends. We just have women we haven't [had sex with] yet. I mean, we've got some platonic friends, but they're all by accident every platonic friend I've got is some woman I was trying to [have sex with], I made a wrong turn somewhere, and ended up in the Friend Zone: 'Oh no! I'm in the Friend Zone! Chris Rock is highlighting the difference between the way women and men view relationships and how some men are incapable of viewing women as anything other than potential sexual partners. Is it really necessary for me to say that women are so much more than that? It is truly, truly frightening to think there are men who see women as nothing more than sexual objects. The friend zone is often associated with the Nice Guy Syndrome, in which a male deludes himself into thinking that the reason females wont date or have sex with him is simply because he is too nice and she would much rather go for the jerk. Now let me to propose a very logical question to you: what female, or any human being for that matter, wouldnt like a person for being nice? There are certainly other factors that are crucial to a rejection, but being nice is certainly not one of them. Contrary to popular belief, nice guys do not finish last. They finish last for a completely different reason, which may simply be that they are not compatible with their love interest. Rest assured, a woman definitely has reasons for rejecting a man. It may be a lack of physical or emotional connection or something else entirely, but that reason is certainly not because the man was nice. However, perhaps the nice guy isnt as nice as he thought he was if he believes a female is so wrong for rejecting him and owes him some sort of romantic relationship or sex simply because he treated her kindly. There is no reward for being a nice human being; a girl does not, in any way, owe a man anything because he is nice to her or because he is a good friend.

In general, a lot of relationships start off as friendships. Whether a woman wants to turn a friendship into a relationship or not is her choice, and what she chooses does not make her a villain. Some men need to learn to accept the fact that some women will not be attracted to them or see them as anything more than a friend, and thats that. A woman does not and never will owe a man anything because he was her friend or because he was nice to her. It is a womans right to decide whether she sees a man as a friend or something more. And is it honestly that unbearable to be friends with a woman? Please keep in mind that women dont exist just to date or have sex. Please do not blame a woman for just wanting to be friends, and accept the rejection with grace.