When I was in high school, I was a “nice guy.” I would hold doors open, listen to my female friends’ problems, and generally just fall hopelessly in love with any girl that talked to me. I would constantly tell these girls that “other guys” that were interested in them were assholes, and that we “nice guys” were never rewarded for our niceness. My greatest offence, however, was my insistence that the “friend zone” existed. For the uninformed: The friend zone is the colloquial terms for a relationship between two people (stereotypically heterosexual) where one person (normally the man) will be romantically or sexually interested in the other, while the other person does not feel this way, only seeing this other person as a good friend. You can of course see where this relationship gets awkward, especially for immature teenagers: unrequited feelings can be painful. This would be a real problem for me, especially when most of my friends early in my high school career were girls, and most of my classes had a 1:2 boy-girl ratio. Essentially, I was insufferably in the friend zone. However, looking back at high school now, I’ve realized one thing: The friend zone doesn’t exist, and it never has.
The basic principle behind delegating a “zone” to friendship when person A is interested in person B implies that person B should be with person A, regardless of their feelings. The friend zone ignores the feelings of the other party, dismissing them as incorrect, with the desperate hope that they will “come around” like a bad 80s movie and realize what they’ve been missing in choosing to remain “just friends” with the boy next door. The friend zone removes the agency of the other person, discrediting their decisions on the matter. To me, it didn’t matter if that girl didn’t like me, I was the right choice for her, because of my feelings.
The friend zone suggests that there are other zones, and the friend zone is the wrong one. To me, the existence of the friend zone suggests the existence of 2 other zones: The “bone zone,” and the “stranger zone.” In the stranger zone, you do not know the other party at all, and in the bone zone, your wish is coming true, and you and this person are actually together. Therefore, the friend zone is insufferable because it is a sort of limbo between the two extreme opposite zones. You can’t break into the bone zone, while simultaneously feeling the pain of knowing this person and breaking past the stranger zone. I think this is why so many people choose to “ghost” people who have rejected them, because it’s better to go back to the stranger zone than to be in this weird middle-grey area. It’s something I still do from time to time (#stillaniceguy), mostly because I am still shaking the remnants of my friend zone days.
Furthermore, the friend zone suggests that the bone zone is the proper zone, and this refusal by the other party to go into the right zone is the source of much of the passive-aggressive emotionalism that goes into the friend zone. No one who believes in the friend zone actually recognizes their place, they constantly try to break through, ignoring the feelings of the other person and are often being a jealous, overreaching, crappy friend who is on their A game whenever this person is single. If you checked yes to any of these symptoms: You are not a friend, you are a little Chihuahua waiting for scraps to fall on the floor, annoying everyone at the dinner table. Have you ever met a person who your friend has “friend zoned?” Isn’t it terrible for you, especially if they think you’re “competition?”
The friend zone does not exist because people are not checklists. You do not have the right to go from stranger to love of your life with every person you find attractive. You do not get to ignore other people’s legitimate feelings because they do not fit within your fantasies, nor do you have a right to be mad at anyone who exercises their right to autonomous choices. So if you like someone and they don’t like you back, you can do three things. One: You can cut off all contact with them, and that’s totally cool. If you feel like ghosting someone because you know that all you’re interested in is a relationship they do not want to pursue, good on you. That person is probably better off too, because now they can find people that fall into option two. In option two, you accept that person’s wishes, decide that you would still like to remain friends with this person, and you move on. You develop a healthy relationship with this person using your own emotional maturity, and maybe you find someone else that is interested in a relationship with you. That’s cool too. In option three, you become a bitter man child, dedicated to making this person’s life around you miserable, trying to drive away “competition” until they see you as the real “nice guy” that you are. This was me, and probably many people reading this in high school. It comes with a lack of emotional maturity and some good, old-fashioned misogynistic societal expectations, often mixed with a dash of fragile masculinity (or at least in my case). Now which sounds like the best choice to you?
Friendships should be mutual, not a compromise. So the next time you think you’re in the friend zone, ask yourself: Are they the problem, or is it me?
