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| The friendzone does not exist |
The “friendzone”
is a situation in which a friendship exists between two people, one of whom has
an unreciprocated sexual interest in the other.
It is where men go – or where men perceive
themselves to end up – when a woman of their desires fails to reward their
friendship with sexual favours.
From a not-entirely feminist perspective (more so common
sense), the friendzone has come to exist as a way of diminishing a woman’s
right to say “no” to a person’s
sexual advances. Frankly, it is a sexist
myth. It is not real.
Whilst sex might well be a human need, it is not a human
right and nobody owes you anything, regardless of your feelings for that
person. As @hexjackal on Twitter so
succinctly put it, “friendzoning is
bullshit because girls are not machines that you put Kindness Coins into until
sex falls out”. This statement
underlines the intrinsic sexism in the existence of the friendzone. That obnoxious idea women should in any way
be morally obliged to reciprocate sexual or romantic interests totally weakens
the notion of women as autonomous, free individuals with the right to make
their own decisions, particularly the right to make their own decisions about
relationships, sex and their bodies. No
person, regardless of sexual identity, is indebted to reciprocate romantic
interest. The fact that the friendzone
has allowed men to reprimand and alienate women for refusing men who are
interested in them is sexist and denies the idea that women are equal to men.
The number of friendzoned men who fundamentally
misunderstand sex, consent, and choice is nonsensical. It indicates the issue that friendzoning is
based on the presumptuous idea that men are owed sex and women are the people
who have to give it to them. It is a
form of objectification, and it is unacceptable.
There is nothing wrong in telling a woman that you are
interested in her, just like there is nothing wrong in a woman not returning
that attraction. What is wrong, however,
is the reaction to rejection by calling her a slut, bitch or any other
derogatory term, followed by a complaint that he is a “nice guy trapped” in the
friendzone. This leads me to question
whether the guy was really that nice in the first place. Are men really that insecure in expressing
their emotions and making themselves vulnerable that the only way to displace this
fragility is by projecting their self-doubt onto women? Are these men really that nice if they’re
capable of acting like assholes and degrading women?
If the guy is really that nice, then surely they advocate
the belief that women and men are equal.
Yet, somewhere along the lines men have got it into their heads that
their romantic advances are supposed to be responded positively to, and if they aren't, then it is a failure. The sexist misogynistic system
has allegedly failed you as a nice guy.
The world doesn't owe you shit for being nice. And girls certainly don’t either. You’re supposed to be nice to people
(whatever happened to “it’s nice to be
nice”?). You don’t get a cookie for
a simple civility that you should be doing anyway. Therefore women most certainly do not owe you
sex simply because you were friendly and polite. The friendzone does not exist, and the use of
the term needs to end. Men need to stop
denying and punishing women for the right to say “no”.
You argue that the friendzone does not exist based on how you seem to think that every guy who has been 'friendzoned' actually expects whoever they're interested in to be sexually or romantically interested back to them. This is, for want of a better word, absolute bullshit. I know many people (including myself) who have been 'friendzoned' and let me tell you not a single one of us expected anything from it. When the person we like tells us they are only interested in us as a friend, the immediate feeling is not of anger, or some self proclaimed right to have romantic and/or sexual relations with them, and I have never known anyone to react to rejection with so called 'derogatory terms'. It is just rather depressing.
ReplyDeleteThe 'nice guy trapped' situation is very real and highlights how we, as people in general, differentiate between people we see as friends and people we see as potential romantic partners. It usually doesn't take long to establish which category we put them in, thus when someone who is romantically interested in someone else fails to be categorised as a potential romantic partner, they are put in the friend zone.
What can also often happen is a situation between two people who start as friends, but one of them develops feelings which are not mutual, thus they are only seen as a friend, putting them in the friend zone.
Another point you failed to bring up was the fact that women can be friendzoned too! It is not some male propaganda created to oppress women, or whatever some of the more radical feminists may believe. Plenty of women (again, I know a lot of them) develop feelings for men who see them as a friend, and have no romantic interest whatsoever, which can be equally, if not more distressing for them.
Please realise that there is never any idea of moral obligation in a friendzone relationship, and more often than not, being in the friendzone can be a rather painful experience.
Firstly, your original point at the beginning discusses your personal experiences and those of people you know. That is a subjective experience, and, on the whole, is not one that is experienced by everyone put in this magical thing called the friendzone. Just because you have not known anyone personally to react to rejection vehemently does not mean that it never happens. More often than not in today’s society, due to the growth of social networking platforms, the derogatory terms are used anonymously and behind the backs of those who rejected the individual.
DeleteChoosing not to accept or reciprocate the feelings of a person does not put them in the friendzone. It is, in itself, a derogatory label and it is all about perception. Viewing yourself as having been friendzoned is a subjective perception, not one that can be objectively proven, which is why I attempt to argue that it does not exist for this very reason. The categories we put them in, as you put it, are social constructions in order that, as a social group, we can understand where we align ourselves in a social hierarchy, and need not exist with such terms.
Regarding women being friendzoned too, if you took the time to research the concept, you would discover that every definition of the term refers to men only. This is why I did not discuss women in the article as it would've seemed silly to contradict the definitions I had found. And I never said it was male propaganda. My argument is that the friendzone does not exist, which evidently you have not understood from my discussion.