I don't think it's possible to have a discussion about true love outside of a relationship. The early feelings of attachment and infatuation are really confusing, and let's be real, it's not true love at the beginning even if the relationship that ends up occurring is really good.
Wanting to be the friend of a potential significant other is honestly a good strategy, if you will. I mean, how do you expect a relationship to last if you can't keep up a friendly level of interaction?
And to further expand on the reality of the friendzone: I think it is substantiated by personality flaws or dislikes or incompatibilities that reveal themselves over the course of the friendship. The same phenomenon occurs in a relationship as well, which is why most relationships don't work out. The only difference is that those incompatibilities don't lead up to a breakup when you're in the friendzone, but in either case, one party is eliminating the other party as a potential romantic target over the course of having experienced them.
I don't think anyone here is saying that having a romantic relationship that blooms from a friendship is a bad thing, so I'm not sure why you're bringing this up. Heck, my current partner was my best friend for a good few years! But the idea that you
need to be friends with someone before you date them is silly. Match-making has existed for ages, from hiring a professional to having friends arrange blind dates to modern internet dating sites, and those relationships can be just as good as ones that start from friendships. Unless there is hard data proving that one method leads to better relationships, I wouldn't try ranking one against the other.
As for your last paragraph, what exactly about that differentiates "friendzoning" from regular rejection? People in this thread seem to be equating the two a lot, and while "friendzoning" is a type of rejection, not every rectangle is a square.
I'm admittedly confused by a lot of this post and am not sure what you were trying to say, so I'll hold off on responding further.
I agree; it seems nowadays if you aren't in a relationship there's something wrong with you; I feel I need to find myself first before committing to someone else-one of my friends is never without a "boyfriend", whenever she's broken up she has another one within 24 hours. Seems kind of mentally and emotionally draining
Just wanted to throw out there that you are not alone, and this is not a new phenomenon. My grandma's sisters and friends teased her about being an "old spinster" because she wasn't married until she was the ripe old age of 21. D:
I am a strong proponent of loving yourself and making sure you're ready before entering into a relationship. You should be mature enough to be comfortable with being single before getting ahead of yourself.
Agreed, I have lost many good friendships as I've rejected "advances", makes me kind of upset that friendship meant nothing. Sometimes I find friendship more special as you have more memories or emotion to that person than you would in a relationship.
For example in reference to it, when I work in retail there was this guy who loved to give his number out and try to get in a relationship with every girl. When I told one of the older women this, she said I should give him a chance because he's nice. It's strange to only date someone just because of that but she found it normal, and even when he was sending me 30+ messages a day, she said it was just being friendly.
As mentioned above it seems when you are friends with the opposite gender a lot of questioned get raised, and it's almost like "why are you not"
That someone would completely stop being your friend just because you don't want to date them is so crappy. :/ Yes, everyone feels a bit hurt and awkward after a rejection, but to go so far as ending a friendship over it calls into question whether they were really a friend at all.
As for your second paragraph, while that's not really on the subject of "friendzoning" imo, that is still really creepy and not okay, both on the part of that guy and your coworker. I completely agree that dating someone only "because they seem nice" is so icky. "Being nice" is something I expect of all people - if your primary positive quality is "being nice" then it's hardly a ringing endorsement. Also, this is absolutely a social pressure that's mostly aimed at women. Guy don't really get told "you don't seem interested in that girl, but she seems nice, give her a chance!" as regularly as women. Also no, sending someone 30+ texts is not "being friendly." It sounds like your coworker has really bad judgement, please don't take her advice. :/
Other than your post reading like a diatribe against some unspecified, here-absent person who wants to be friends with females, presumably if you mean 'you as opposed to someone else,' then yes, that act of discrimination or division would generally require reasons to justify it.
I have no idea what you're trying to imply with the first part of this sentence. Everyone here is speaking in generalities (which tends to happen
whenever you get into a conversation about "friendzoning"). Not really sure what you're getting at.
No, you are not "required" to give reasons for not wanting to date someone, or not wanting to be their friend, or not wanting to have sex with them. Heck, you don't even have to tell someone why you're breaking up with them, even though it would be nice if you did. Nobody has to justify their choices to other people: if someone says "no, not interested" then it's not up for debate or discussion. Too often, providing someone with reasons just makes them try to convince you your reasons aren't good enough, or try to logic their way out of it. This is especially dangerous with abusers - obviously you can't say "it's because you verbally abuse me," but they will also use every reason you use against you, so it's safer not to give them any ammunition. There are situations where "sorry, but no" is simply the
best answer, plus
people who won't listen to "no" are not people who you should give answers to anyway.
For the record:
- I have been in a situation where someone broke up with me and gave me all of the reasons for their choice. I'm not sure why they did it, but it was more hurtful than anything else.
- I've also been in situations where I had to reject someone, and they became belligerent over it and demanded an explanation. Had I given them answers it would have only upset them more, and I didn't want to escalate the situation.
- I have also been in situations where I kept having to reject someone over and over, and whenever I'd say why they would belittle my reasons and act like they weren't good enough. The fact that they couldn't take "no" for an answer is reason enough to reject them.
And where are all of these females who think of romantic relationships as a milder relation than friendship? In all likelihood they do not. So a person thinks too much of them and doesn't wish to engage in a lower form of relationship which contradicts this or is 'dishonest,' this isn't likely to lead to a similar complaint to that of people who are 'friendzoned.'
Nobody in this thread has said anything about friendships being on some kind of lower tier than romantic relationships. In fact, my point was specifically that some men get
insulted when women consider them to be friends, as if a woman considering a man to be her friend is somehow degrading him.
I'm not sure you understood my point about dishonesty. I said it is dishonest to try and become someone's friend if you were never actually interested in being friends with them. That's like becoming friends with a rich person because you're hoping they'll give you free stuff, then acting hurt when they don't. You can't complain about being "friendzoned" if you literally acted like you just wanted to be friends the whole time. If you act like a friend,
people will treat you as a friend. I'm all for relationships blossoming out of friendships, but if you're into someone, just be upfront.
Incidentally it seems strange that people immediately assume when people discuss these things in the context of gender that this necessarily means that they're positing something inherent to the female gender by this, when obviously in terms of social dynamics and characteristics females are very different from males. This might even affect social conduct of some people which involves them, this is not even going too far.
Actually, a lot of guys who complain about the "friendzone" make huge, sweeping assumptions about how "girls never want Nice Guys" and "girls only like jerks." Nobody is denying that men and women are different and are socialized differently. That doesn't excuse anyone's behaviour, and it still doesn't change anything that's been said here, imo. I'm not sure what your point was, but you're building a lot of straw men.
I agree. There's always a reason for not wanting to date someone, just as there's always a reason for everything that happens in this world. Most often it's a lack of interest or a lack of compatibility. It's generally appropriate to communicate this lack of interest or compatibility because it helps create closure - if you really don't want a relationship with person, then it seems in your best interest to put them in a place of mind where they are less likely to pursue that relationship, not even considering whatever compassion you might have for the other person as a friend, colleague, or human being. In my personal experience, awkward unrequited loves exist longer then they have to be if that lack of interest is not firmly communicated. So while not owing explanations to someone is ostensibly true, it's not the most practical advice that I would give someone.
"No" is a full sentence. If someone tells you "no," then you need to listen. It is an answer by itself, and does not require any further explanation or reasoning. It is not my responsibility to "put someone in a frame of mind" to stop pursuing me, and that line of thinking verges on rape apology. "You should have said why you didn't want to have sex with him when you said no - maybe if you had, he wouldn't have kept pursuing you!" Someone who gets rejected has to acknowledge the rejection and move past it on their own terms - nobody is responsible for helping them.
Would it be
nice to get an explanation when you get rejected? Oftentimes, hell yes! There's no denying that.
But 1) that doesn't mean it will help, and 2) it still doesn't mean you're entitled to hearing the reasons. When my first boyfriend dumped me, he thought he was "helping" me by giving me a long laundry list of reasons why he had done it. It didn't give me closure; it just made me upset.
The fact is that being friendzoned hurts. Overcoming that is hard to do. Exiting the friendzone usually also difficult.
Friendzoning someone can also be difficult. It is painful. Especially if you do care about that person.
What you do about it is up to you. Friendships don't have to end when romance fails. They simply don't. They also don't have to continue when romance does fail. It's a decision between two people. Their decision because it's their emotional well being at stake.
I'd say the first two paragraphs of your post apply to rejection in general, really, and isn't unique to the idea of friendzoning. I do agree with this sentiment overall, though I wouldn't necessarily agree that maintaining a friendship is a decision between two people. It takes two to tango, that's true, but it only takes one to say no.
~Psychic
