Picture this: It is your girlfriend's birthday. You buy her balloons and show up at her doorstep. Everything is going well, until you two run into her friends and they ask "Is this your boyfriend?" And she says "Of course not. He is just my best friend. I mean, he is like a boyfriend. But not a boyfriend." You are puzzled and everything seems like a surprise. Except it isn't; you knew this was happening. You knew that as much of a crush you have on her, she saw you as a friend. It isn't bad, but to you it is. After all, this isn't the first occasion it happens. "What's this? What's this?," you pretend to ask. Since you are pretending you don't know, you are in what we call "The Friend zone."
You are still pretending? Fine, I will explain. According to the trusted source that is Wikipedia, the friend zone is that plane of existence of commitment mismatch, in which a member of the friendship yearns for a romantic relationship while the other does not. It is seen as an undesirable and painfully atrocious situation. It can be seen as misogynistic. However, it can be applied to both genders! Seems weird? Imagine how I feel explaining the friend zone to you, buddy.
But first, let's explain why this can be seen as misogynistic. Let's blame the nice guys on this one. And by "nice guys" I mean the jerks that come in a sugarcoat that eventually deteriorates and makes us, the actual nice guys, look bad. They are regular men who claim to be nice, but whose "nice deeds" are motivated by attempts to please women into "rewarding" them with a relationship. It imposes the expectation that women owe them something. As a guy who has to do the dishes every now and then because I have to be a functional member of the household, I can say that no. They don't owe us anything.
A little disclaimer: This is my opinion! Anyway, how does this concept have an effect in both genders? I am glad you ask, guy reading this. Or girl. You know what, just anyone reading this. When guys gets friendzoned, then they just don't get any affection from their loved ones. When a girl gets friendzoned, their loved ones may engage in a physical relationship with them, but they might not engage in a serious commitment.
The question of the year is: Does the friendzone really exist? Some say no. I say yes. The problem with such plane of existence is how we react towards it. Yes, every now and then the commitment mismatch will happen. However, you have two options: you can go to the bar and cry while you shamefully drown your sorrows in that cranberry vodka. Or, my favorite one, you can come to terms with it and head towards another direction. You came, you saw, you didn't conquer? Off to the next.
