kipawang:

angels-and-angles:

Why the friendzone is bullshit and self-proclaimed “nice guys” are misogynists

Wow, accidentally deleted my original post. Reblogging so I can keep it in my archives.

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As defined by urban dictionary, the friendzone is…

“When you are expected to support a girl you really like while she searches for a smarter, richer, and more handsome boyfriend. There is little you can do without feeling like a dick. All in all, one of the meanest things a girl can do, whether they mean it or not.”

and ”The perennial location of nice guys everywhere.”

Although this hypothetical situation could work both ways, friendzone is almost always applied to a man who is rejected by a woman. Therefore, there is something inherently unequal, something inherently sexist about the term “friendzone”. But what and why?

From my experience, this is what friend zone is. A “nice guy” pursues a woman, but isn’t forward with his intentions from the get-go like, say, a “jerk”. The woman is pleased to see a man who is interested in her not as a sexual object but as a human being and wishes for things to stay that way. The man is not satisfied with seeing the woman as a human being because being “expected to support a girl” is a bad deal if she’s not putting out.

Before I delve into the sociological aspects of this, I just want to point out that ”friendzone” is no more pleasant for a woman than it is a man. First, that is to say unrequited love works both ways, but the person who doesn’t return affections is considered mean only when she’s a woman. And second, what option does the woman have in a traditional “friendzone” situation? Just stop talking to a close friend to avoid “leading him on”? In high school, I found out my best friend of 2 years liked me. Having to tell him I didn’t feel the same way and being immediately ex-communicated via Facebook status (“Thanks for wasting my time”) was one of the worst things that ever happened to me. Were our two years of friendship invalid because I didn’t want anything more? Was all our time together really wasted because there was no hypothetical pay off?

Guys who do this and claim to be “nice guys” are the worst misogynists because of their sense of entitlement toward a woman. They make investments in property and expect their dividends. They are fake friends. They are selfish. And they will jump at the chance to vilify you and victimize themselves when their attempts at manipulation don’t work. Clearly, “friendzone” is the remnant of a phenomenon that has plagued women since the beginning of time: women are not independent creatures. Our love lives exist only in the context of a man’s desire. When we make independent decisions, we are subject to a host of derogatory terms. “Slut” is how we vilify a woman for exercising her right to say “yes”. “Friendzone” is how we vilify a woman for exercising her right to say “no”

^co-signed

almost every close male friend i’ve ever had has done this to me, and for that reason i no longer befriend men irl. the most recent dude who pulled this crap with me had the nerve to start whining that “[did] our friendship mean so little to you” when i objected to his manipulation. the thing is, the person it meant nothing to wasn’t me at all, it was him. i wasn’t the one who only stuck around in the hope of sex. i wasn’t the one who heard “look, i’ll never be interested in you as more than a friend” and decided to a) lie that that wasn’t a problem and b) try to trick and pressure me into sex after my explicit rejection.

so fuck him, fuck the other men who have done this to me, and fuck men who do this to anyone else too. i am a great friend to have, and a nice person, and i am worth more than half-hearted, insincere ploys at friendship in the hope of getting your dick wet.