Myths about the so-called "Friend Zone"
viska
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Location: Everytime you close your eyes: Lies, lies.
I agree that the "friend zone" is not inescapable, but I think this depends on the individual. Personally, I'm more often attracted to friends or friends of friends than strangers. All of my relationships have started as friendships. One developed from a 5 year long friendship.
My experience (in my life and from what I know of my friends') is completely backwards from what you wrote. The general pattern is: You meet someone new, there's the flirty stage for a while, then you go out on a few informal 'dates', you have sex relatively early in the relationship, and THEN you begin to learn a lot about your partner.
I don't know of a lot of "We were close friends for 6mos / 1year+ / whatever, and then we decided to start going out." It happened in high school, but I personally don't know any couples that developed like this in college or post-college.
I think there's a difference between being in a serious relationship and playing the dating game, and it sounds like you're doing the latter. While I'm sure this has led to some success stories, most people do it more as a routine, and sex or excitement is the objective. You're not likely to find a partner this way unless you have really simple tastes, and of course most Aspies are the opposite.
My personal experience does actually follow the friends-zone theory. I have been good friends with several girls/women without ever getting involved with them. In some of the cases I wished it to be otherwise, in some other I did not mind. All the women who did have an interest in me (well, as far as I know; sometimes I can miss things) had so in a short time, around the second time I saw them. I am not saying your wrong ofcourse, but I can see where the theory comes from.
What I really agree with is your third point! I had some very constructive friendships among them. The connection I had with these women was different from what I had with some male friends. While sex is nice in my now 5 year relationship it's only a small part of it. The personal connection is more important. This is also a more important reason than the chance to meet other women through female friends. At least that never worked for me. What is important is that I learned a lot about women from having female friends and that made future friendships and relationships easier.
Just putting my 3/4 of a cent in. I don't want to break the whole you can be friends first thing going on here I just have a personal experience with a girl with whom I had a big cruch on for like two semesters that ending last semester. I tried to be friends with her first and she really wasn't happy about that and just stopped talking to me for a couple days (jeez that happened on and off all the time last semester b/c I'm inexperienced and don't know the queues) b/c of my non explicit romantic advances, plus some girls the summer b4 also got put off by me not being all flirty or trying to get to date them right away, they tend to get upset about that even though we usually have fun and I'm really nice to them. Anyway none of that means you can't be friends first it just means if they like you or you like them that trying to be friends first may not be possible atleast thats seems to be my case.
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How can you like someone without having been friends with them or at least knowing what they are like as a person?
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How can you like someone without having been friends with them or at least knowing what they are like as a person?
As I'm sure you know, men often let their genitals lead the way.
As a matter of fact, men have their own "Friend Zone." Find a girl unattractive? Friend Zone! Too heavy? Friend Zone! Wrong type? Friend Zone!
This makes it sound like men go around and tack figurative "Friend Zone" signs on the foreheads of women who are too ugly, fat, not right type, etc. I can't recall ever meeting a woman I wasn't romantically attracted to and then thinking to myself, "Ah-huh! It's the Friend Zone for her!" Usually if she turns out to be unattractive to me, I was never pursuing her romantically to begin with.
As a matter of fact, men have their own "Friend Zone." Find a girl unattractive? Friend Zone! Too heavy? Friend Zone! Wrong type? Friend Zone!
This makes it sound like men go around and tack figurative "Friend Zone" signs on the foreheads of women who are too ugly, fat, not right type, etc. I can't recall ever meeting a woman I wasn't romantically attracted to and then thinking to myself, "Ah-huh! It's the Friend Zone for her!" Usually if she turns out to be unattractive to me, I was never pursuing her romantically to begin with.
Well, I think many men place a woman "in the Friend Zone" if the woman makes her romantic interest clear first and the man finds her initially unattractive for whatever reason. Still, your point is well made.
Mine has been extremely mixed, and I've had a lot of female friends. Sometimes the friendship has started off with mostly friendship but moved into tons of flirty later on and then become semi serious only to end, in other cases it's been strictly friends and in the most recent case I have a female friend who flirts with me often and seems very serious.
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I have gotten used to being in the friendzone. I don't even know what it feels like to be out of it. I have dated three guys just because they were there and they were interested in me. I know that I shouldn't have done that. I just got tired of feeling invisible and was happy when some guy actually showed some interest in me.
Lucky
nick007
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Me & my 1st girlfriend were good online friends a while before she started having feelings for me & told me she liked me. I wouldn't of considered a realtionship with her if we weren't good friends because I didn't have any interests in romantic relationships till I realized I liked her too. I haven't had luck but bad being friends with other women thou because they kept only seeing me as a friend. They complained to me about how they wish they could find guys who were more like me while never giving me a chance.
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Probably.
My own experience was that it's actually the female that tried to rush things.
Frustrated by my cluelessness they would often become angry and resort to abuse.
Looking back, with all I now know, it all would have gone down way different.
But at the time it just made for the impression that females were somehow trying to kill me.
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