Oh no, my miserable life that’s devoid of any connection and anyone altogether otherwise *at least contains a friend.
What the fuck man, is this a real concern average people have that I’m way too fucking alienated to understand
And yet pretty much everyone I became platonic with I develop a crush on / slightly fall for if they remain cool.
As I said, the “friend zone” as a concept is generally a cognitohazard. Having romantic interest turned down hurts, yes, but anticipating “friendzoning” and seeing it as some antagonistic experience that must result in a complete cutting off of the other person just raises the antagonism in the dating pool that much more.
It fucking sucks that so few cishet men are willing to try an actual nonromantic friendship with a cishet woman and I think normalizing the idea of “if no sex, then disappear” just makes that worse.
Growing up gay, I would have done anything if it meant the maximum consequence for confessing my feelings to someone who wasn’t interested was a “no”. Usually the best I could expect was a reaction so out the fucking wazoo, it’s as if I had shot their grandma to death in front of them. Worst case would be my brain becoming a plaything for a med student by next morning.
I’ve got a feeling that if I’d reacted the same way to a straight lady asking me out, society would suddenly become enlightened as to the proper way to behave.
I have trouble telling between my crushes and squishes sometimes, so I just choose to label the feelings based on whether the two of us feel like getting naughty. If we’re not doing naughty stuff together then it’s a squish, and I choose to be happy to be spending platonic time with them
People say this, but let’s be honest the “friend zone” is something most people experience, it just go cringe to use because of the way incels use it. Having romantic feelings for someone while trying to have a plutonic relationship with them is a frustrating thing to navigate. The issue is people getting an immature victimhood complex about it.
Yeah the whole incel thing has really poisoned the well on a legitimate issue like this. It’s kind of funny how some leftists will talk about context when it comes to the faults of former AES states but on other issues (especially ones like this, i.e. dating) they completely ignore context and sound like your average lib. Oh well I guess we all have to continue to grow.
Also if it something you can’t handle, better off just avoiding the person and trying to move on. Hoping plutonic friendship leads to romantic love is usually a fools errand.
I mean it works out for some people I suppose (for ex UlyssessT in this thread) but yeah I think remaining friends while still holding out hope is disingenuous.
I mean, I don’t think it’s a “legitimate issue” in the sense that it’s something society needs to deal it, it’s an interpersonal thing that sucks but that individuals need to deal with in the best way they can.
I think it’s both. Just like any other issue that socialists talk about, like racism, sexism, classism, etc. They can all be “dealt with” on an interpersonal level, but ultimately there needs to be a societal change.
I think remaining friends while still holding out hope
I agree here specifically because the “holding out hope” part is, both for the friendship and for the person maintaining that hope instead of accepting the friendship, or moving on without the friendship if they can’t, which is also preferable to “holding out hope.”
Accept the friendship if you can, earnestly work toward accepting the friendship if you’re not all the way there, or move on. Those are the best choices.
Hoping plutonic friendship leads to romantic love is usually a fools errand.
I agree with everything you said, except this one here, every functioning long term relationship (and i mean decades long term) i saw in my life was evolved from this. Platonic friends are better at solving their problems in general, way better than people who came together cause they wanted to fuck each other.
While I have indeed been 'friend zone’d, I’ve had more than three platonic friendships turn into romantic relationships in my lifetime, which is the majority of my actual relationships. Obviously don’t rely on it, maybe the key was that I went into all those friendships fully accepting that we might only ever be friends and that was fine.
It depends how long the platonic relationship has been. If it only been a few weeks or even months if you don’t see each other often, moving over to a romantic relationship can go really well. If you’re trying to turn a years long platonic relationship into a romantic one, yeah in most cases that I’d a fools errand.
[Medium: Failure] — “The friend-zone” is the single worst place any wöman could dare to put you in. It’s where you’re sent when — for some unknown, female reason — she doesn’t value you as a potential mate. That she values someone with better mate qualities than you. That’s what the friend-zone is; it’s wöman’s way of saying “fuck you”.
— It’s really that bad?
— Of course, bröther. The gynocentrists want you to think it’s fine. Break your conditioning. Keep pushing. Your persistence will prove how much you deserve her.
On the converse, I tried to take a relationship with a close friend to the next level.
It did not go well and we do not talk anymore
Yeah see, even if I was deeply interested in a romantic relationship with that person, I’d never take it to the next level and stay within boundaries out of fear of not losing them.
Is that conceited?
Nah, it just seems like a defense mechanism I guess. As @red_stapler@hexbear.net, we learned our lessons.
Wish I had thought like you did at the time. Oh well. Maybe in another life.
Did you secretly like them or did you admit it? And did they secretly know or only know after you admitted it?
Bit idea.
- Find people who think “the friend zone” is incel-speak for “when femoids won’t fuck me”.
- Find people who think “the friend zone” is just an emotionally ambiguous attraction.
- Put them in a thread and let them fight.
It would be so funny
emotionally ambiguous attraction
It’s kind of unfair to assume the person who said they aren’t romantically interested is being “ambiguously attracted.”
The people arguing from that perspective aren’t talking about relationships where someone’s been rejected or even necessarily would be rejected if they tried. That’s kind of my point. People are talking about very disparate things and calling them the same name.
Giving this a bump because the extremes have widened.
It is now “the OP is mocking anyone who’s ever experienced unrequited love” vs “anyone complaining about this post feels entitled to women’s bodies”.
Post machine go brrrrr
Did some one say… extreme?
I don’t buy the misogyny arguments here. I remember being a teenager, and that shit feels desperate. Everybody else is hooked up and they seem so happy, and you’ve found someone you feel like you can really connect with, but they don’t feel the same. So you’ve made a big deal of it in your mind and when they say “I think of you more as a friend”, it feels like a full-on breakup.
Of course, you still have to get over it, just like a breakup. Learning to deal with that stuff is part of growing up.
Even as an adult, couples tend to hang out with other couples, and it can be challenging to be the single person in a group.
I know some people go too far, wallowing in self-pity over being friendzoned, and it can poison a person. Maybe it seems silly from the outside, and you think they should just get over it, but I think people deserve empathy and support as much as possible. Ideally we can help people work through their shit and not let this little blip in their lives come to define them.
Okay I’m done rambling. Thanks for reading.
What part of “you’ve found someone you feel like you can really connect with” excludes being friends or queerplatonic partners with that person? Ideally all your friendships should have a deep feeling of personal connection and love.
While I agree principally, I think a good percentage of people in the world reserve that kind of intimacy for their romantic partner, or select one or two long-term friends already in their life. So if they’re unwilling to have a romance, I think the odds are very small that a deep personal connection will then bloom.
So then we’re back at the issue that people hate being friendzoned because they refuse to value friendships
I think you summed up my thoughts on this better than I could ever articulate. It’s like it’s become a thing now to take any negative feelings about romantic or sexual rejection and ascribe to it the label “incel” just because some / many people deal with that rejection in unhealthy ways.
I found myself in the friend zone lots of times in my single days. It sucks and it hurt. But I didn’t go online and whinge about it or say all women are bad or whatever or let it mutate into anti-social behaviors. I maybe felt down for a bit and then moved on, nbd. That’s how I bet most people deal with it.
Maybe it seems silly from the outside, and you think they should just get over it, but I think people deserve empathy and support as much as possible. Ideally we can help people work through their shit and not let this little blip in their lives come to define them.
Yeah it definitely is a shitty feeling, and those that try to convince you it’s not are honestly trying to gaslight you (whether intentionally or not).
