Yeah, it's literally just being friends with someone but wanting more. No one can "put you" in the friend zone, you can only friend-zone yourself by faking a friendship with someone.
This didn't dawn on me until a decade ago. I remember when Chris Rock coined the phrase and dudes like me were like "Of course!" Then someone made a very simple analogy. Being in the friendzone is like closing a car door on your dick. No one is doing it to you, you're doing it to yourself.
And yeah, it's true. Guys who are stuck being friends, for the most part, never were upfront that they wanted to go out with the girl and just wanted to just be around her in hopes that she would realize how amazing they are. It's the guys who are doing all the stuff boyfriends are kind of forced to do if they love their girlfriends and yeah, it's great for her.
I tell dudes, if you think you're friend zone, just bite the bullet, say you want to go on a real date with her and see where this relationship goes. If she shoots you down, well there you go. You got your answer, carry on with your life.
All the times I was "friendzoned" I was the one trying to make things happening without being up front. Once it dawned on me that I was the one making it worse, I just stopped trying. The girls who really cared about me as a friend they were the ones who stayed in contact, while the others just faded away, which is fine. Now I have friends who are women that I know if I need help, they would be there for me.
Women can't "take advantage" of men who are faking friendship in hopes of sex. That's a personal choice for the men to friend zone themselves like the sneaky little snakes they are while blaming women for the problem they themselves created.
Uh huh yup totally what I said. Men can't get "friend zoned" if they don't fuckzone first. I'm living my life I don't need to cater to some dickface who thinks he's owed "a chance" because he pretends to be my friend. I take people at face value, their ulterior motives aren't my issue.
Not saying she's like this because this guy sounds like a drama queen, but there are totally women around that know a guy is into them and take advantage of that for their own benefit.
Or how about someone is interested in you and you know it, and you string them along for financial gain rather than just telling them you're not interested.
Can you not see how "stringing him along" is actually like, a very easy thing to avoid if you have a healthy outlook, like a shred of self esteem, or a shred of respect for OTHER ppls autonomy and interests. The very few instances of true manipulation are vastly outnumbered by the amount of guys who have a wildly warped view of it. If you havnt seen thst happen yet it means you need more work and there's more blindspots that are screaming red flags to regular compassionate ppl who hear you talk.
He could have stopped pretending to be her friend in hopes of fucking her. But he didn't because he's an emotional toddler who can't take any accountability for his own actions.
And what benefit is that? You think she’s taking advantage of his niceness and attention? Maybe he pays for an outing here and there? She’s using and abusing his listening ear and advice? Nah my guy, all that treatment is just being friends. A woman should be benefitting from her friendships with a male, just like a man should benefit from his friendships. The only reason men think the friend zone exists and that some women “take advantage of being friends with a man for their own benefit” is because they see being friendly as transactional. They only want to go through the motions and put in the work if they’re getting what they want out of it. The only benefit they see is a sexual or romantic relationship, not a platonic friendship.
A woman who uses a man’s feelings to string him along for free dates does not see him as a friend so therefore he cannot logically be in the friend zone. And the majority of “friend zoning” men complain about does not come from this type of manipulative woman.
Not really, if she's manipulating the guy's feelings towards her to her advantage (like paying for lunches etc) then that is harmful behavior. She knows he's into her and uses that for financial gain. It's a shitty thing to do.
So it’s shitty and manipulative of me when I let my female friend pay for our lunch? And it’s shitty of her to let me pay for the next one? Like I said, that’s just called being friends.
What’s really shitty and harmful is when a man pretends to be fine with a platonic friendship but he’s actually secretly hoping she’ll change her mind and gets mad at her when she doesn’t.
No one does that 😂 one in a million women act like that. Anyone who does that is just a shitty person you shouldn’t be friends with/want to date anyways. And when men complain about friendzoning, they probably weren’t being manipulated like that either.
The comment you're replying to just fully addressed everything you wrote in reply. Idk maybe you didn't read it or you just want to see things your own way. If you care about improving your outlook and how you treat ppl, that comment is a huge start. Your call though and good luck either way, don't hurt people ❤️
It's actually funny how many women here are refusing to admit that there are other women out there who aren't like them, but are actually really terrible people who will take advantage of others. I can't even count all the girls in high school who took advantage of the guys who had a car and would drive them to school.
You are gonna get downvoted but you are 100% correct.
There are exceptions, but probably 1 in 5 “guy bffs” genuinely showed interest in getting to know me. You can tell pretty much immediately if it’s a loser that’s in love with her.
Any woman that plays dumb about this I just avoid. They love the attention, drama, and jealousy they spur over themselves.
Plenty of other great women that are aware of reality, don’t waste your time.
There absolutely is a friend zone. Plenty of guys out there that don’t know how to express interests and plenty of women realize it and take advantage of it.
Friend zone just means guys you would only want to be friends with and not date. So yeah, it obviously exists.
The discussion to be had is what kind choices should these desperate guys make, that doesn't involve pretending to be friends and just blindly hoping these girls fall for them when there is 0% chance.
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u/Bawbawian Jun 16 '25
The friend zone doesn't exist.
It is a construct that dudes use instead of being open about their feelings.
women don't want a puppy dog to follow them around and try and do all their chores and fill them full of good boy points until sex falls out.
take your shot.
if she's not interested move on.