edit: whoops I forgot about the incel conception of it, that if you’re friendly to a woman she’ll put you in the “unfuckable” box. Anyone who has dated a friend knows that just isn’t true lol.

This is a struggle session tier controversial topic, but “friend zone” is what happens when

(a) you don’t want to date someone, but are afraid to reject them completely. A lot of people soften the blow by saying “oh we can still be friends”, in the lying polite way you’d say “we should hang out more!” before never following up on it. Especially prevalent among women, because men are dangerous, and especially prevalent when you don’t want to rock the boat in a friend group. It’s actually quite difficult to be friends with an ex or failed romantic prospect even if both people genuinely do want to be friends; you have to manage strong emotions without being able to directly change them.

(b) the rejected party either doesn’t understand or refuses to accept the rejection. Classically, this leads to men trying to “win over” women who don’t want them, and honestly probably don’t even want to be friends now that the dude is being weird about it, while thinly pretending to just be a good platonic friend. Let me get that door for you mlady.

It’s totally legit to want to date someone but not be “just friends” with them. It sucks to lose a friend that way, it’s happened to me, but we’re all adults here and sometimes people have enough friends already or don’t want to be friends with you badly enough to deal with any additional heartache from working through those emotions.

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In my experience, the friend zone is the result of attraction that’s gone unaddressed and has been overtaken by fantasy. If you spent more time fantasizing about your interactions with a person than you spend actually interacting with them, understand that there’s a good risk that they aren’t on the same page with your fantasies and may feel weirded out by you expressing them as if they were true. Better to be up front early about an attraction imo

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As a bi enby I can’t even separate “wanting to be like someone” from “wanting to be with someone,” let alone clearly separating platonic, romantic, and sexual feelings. Like I just wanna hang out and do whatever we vibe with, and that could include sexy stuff or cuddly stuff or hobby stuff or deep conversations or whatever. I guess ideally I would try to see someone not being interested in sex as similar to them not being interested in going skydiving together, though there’s a lot of social conditioning that can make that difficult in practice. Generally though if I think somebody’s cool then I’m happy to be able to hang out with them in whatever capacity works.

Once upon a time I was scared of the friend zone until I realized that’s such a shitty thing to be afraid of. Like, oh no, you’re such good friends with someone they’re not willing to potentially damage your relationship with one another by pushing it further. The friend zone is a good thing. Enjoy platonic love, share that love and relish in it.

I grow to dislike the concept. Notice how it focuses only on the one who wants to pursue a sexual/romantic relationship, as if platonic relationship is somehow lesser. Why don’t we ever hear about the “sexual zone” or “romantic zone” about people who desire a deep platonic relationship with someone but who are placed in the “sexual/romantic zone” by that someone? It hurts to be previously friends with someone who gives you the cold shoulder once they find out you don’t want to fuck them. Why should the sexual zoned person’s feelings perspective and feelings be cast aside for the friend zoned person’s feelings and perspective?

Relationships are hard and people have all sorts of fucked up expectations of what a partner is and hang ups about communicating. I’m not in my 20s anymore and I’m just starting to explore the craft of remediating friendships/relationships. When I was younger, I had to discover sympathy for not wanting to fuck up a friendship because I cut people out so much more easily than I explain how inappropriate someone is acting. I would tear through a friendship turned relationship when they criticize me for something I don’t feel is worthy of criticism and it’s RIP Bozo for what we had before. This shit still makes me consider whether I’m aromantic because I’m prepared to just be alone rather than try to make a relationship work. A good friend can be a shitty room mate. If you’re the shitty room mate and your friend wants to move in together that shit would be heartbreaking to hear because you’d need to immediately start processing the loss.

You should always say in no uncertain terms that you’re into someone and play that hand. You have the one life to live and I imagine some people are happier in relationships. As long as you don’t start a platonic friendship as a wolf in sheep’s clothing, it’s all fair game as I see it. If you decide that your newly grown feelings aren’t reciprocated and you stop making an effort, whatever. If you don’t bother to know them better after you confess from the get go, whatever. If you can keep newfound feelings to yourself and never confess, fair enough. There aren’t rules to relationships. A wolf in sheep’s clothing is the only thing that is bad manner.

After reading all these comments…

I mean, if I’m romantically interested in someone and they say that they’re not romantically interested in me, that sucks.

Emotions are not rational. I can cognitively know “I am not entitled to this person’s romantic interest and having them in my life as a friend is just as valuable as being in a romantic relationship with them” but my emotions will still feel disappointed and saddened because my romantic feelings aren’t being reciprocated. Confessing your feelings to someone is also a huge moment of emotional vulnerability, and being rejected in that situation can make one feel powerless and inadequate.

Are you gonna tell me that if you confess your feelings to someone and they give you the whole “Let’s just be friends” response, your reaction is “Oh yay, I made a friend”?

It’s simple: just don’t be bothered by something that’s bothering you

PSA: if you are orbiting a person in “the friend zone” hoping to wear them down for a chance then i can promise you everyone is aware of it and everyone laughs at you for being a creep. Grow and change as a person.

is this a real concern average people have

No, it is a concern that incels have. The actual truth is that the people who complain about this shit have never even been friends with a girl and this “fRiEnD zOnEd” shit is just incels making up a scenario and getting mad about. In reality they would be over-joyed to have the privilege of being considered a friend by their crush or whatever.

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