The Big Relationship Thread

[Moshi]

You'd be surprised at how the right person and relationship can come from somewhere you least expected it. All of my relationship tended to pop up when I wasn't actively looking. My husband and I met through my work. He was in the training class after mine and his roommate and me were in the same training class for the call center. My work buddy worked out a date with us since he was a bit shy and we hit it off. If you relax and let things happen naturally then eventually you'll get the one you should be with.

[Fezzul]

It's complicated...

I miss two... Maybe three girls in New York. One i didn't expect to miss. Nothing will likely come of any of them. Never usually does. I obsess, make a fool of myself, move on. Circle of life.

[Lyinginbedmon]

I've mostly been operating under the assumption that if someone finds me at all likeable they'll initiate conversation with me, meaning I avoid the potentiality of looking like a creepy and persistent stalker but also end up potentially looking disinterested.

But hey, strange aloof men that spend most of their time in the dark are cool right now, right?

[Fezzul]

Only if they sparkle when they come in to the sunshine...

[Lyinginbedmon]

Hey, I can get some glitter.

[Fezzul]

Body glitter sends a slightly different message... a fabulous message

[Alja-Markir]

~Alja~

[Lyinginbedmon]

Apparently of the 25 random people she's recently started talking to on the Internet, I'm the most interesting and the most she's talked to in the 13 that she hasn't yet blocked.

[Darkobra]

That explains why she hasn't been on lately!

[Fezzul]

Go man, go

[Lyinginbedmon]

Alright alright, I'll leave, I know when I'm not wanted when someone outright tells me to go

[Fezzul]

He's misunderstanding for comic effect again.

Why I oughta...

[The Jester]

Then why don'tcha?

[Fezzul]

You betta notta...

[Geoff_B]

And now we're all speaking italian-a!

[Fezzul]

Wassa matta wid choo?

[Metcarfre]

Holy shit, this article is spot on. If you're a "nice guy" who has ever complained of being "friend-zoned", READ IT. Thanks to Alex for tweeting it.

[Keab42]

When I actually socialised and spoke to people of either sex, I went in with the attitude that and end result of a good friend was just as good if not better than a relationship.

Of course these days I'm a hermit so it's a moot point.

It's also rather presumptuous of me to assume that I'm a nice guy. Signs appear to point towards me actually being perceived as creepy or worse.

[JustAName]

So I posted to Facebook not expecting much commentary, and I got some. -.- I ought to have learned by now not to post things I don't want people to argue. And then I got this in a message from a friend.

I was originally going to reply to your thread on but I am in the middle of a slightly too delicate a thing(s) right now (*I* am friendzoning/have friendzoned some folk and realized I really can't put up something like this as it might hurt some feelings. You have my blessing to post this somewhere else as something someone wrote and invite whoever to discuss/dissent. I would also enjoy your perspective if you wanted to write me back/disagree/whatever.

Ok, I missed the friend zone discussion, and I'm kinda sorry I did.

Almost everything this article says is completely wrong. I wonder if it was written by a woman or a man who has ever actually experienced the friend zone. (Girls can get friendzoned too, but its much rarer. Taylor swift's song "You belong with me" is all about someone pining from within the friend zone.)

It touches on a lot of ideas that are not, also, the friend zone.

The friend zone also isn't actually a terrible thing. Once you understand what it is, it becomes a TOOL to create safe boundaries for plutonic different gender relationships, and a provides a guideline for roles you want to avoid with a girl you are interested in. You master the friend zone. It's great. However, the first few times you trip and smack heartlong into it, it can ben a rather unwelcome surprise.

The friend zone as described in the article is: That thing where guys are friends with girls and then expect sex from them. I'm sure there are some guys who do this kind of thing, and yes, those guys would in fact be jerks. But even in the case of guys who are nice to girls and then expect sex, the situation isn't that simple. You see, this is where we encounter and discover FEMALE PRIVILEDGE. Men will often to nice, solicitous things FOR women, frequently doing tasks they are unwilling or unable to do themselves. That nice guys who fixes your laptop. The guy who gives you a ride to class. Ect. Now, its true, favors do not equal sex, nor should they. But part of human courtship behavior is one party trying to benefit the other, to create positive associations. (This goes both ways) So while these interactions are not necessarily sexually motivated, they can be sexually charged, whether the guy doing them realizes that or not. Now for any man of character, they realize that they are investing effort on the chance to attract the girl (or guy, or undecided) in question, and if that gamble doesn't pay off, no foul. There are other tables in the casino.

For women, it is extremely important that they choose carefully what favors they accept from men, and realize that as women, they have a privileged status in this regard. Men will almost always do more for a woman than they will for other men. However, if a woman repeatedly accepts courting like favors, but never responds in any kind of reciprocal fashion (And I don't mean sex. I mean by the beginning of a romantic relationship. Dating.) they begin to feel taken advantage of. I've had girls who were solid friends and nothing else ask me for favors that I felt were going too far. But its important to note, this kind of behavior does create an unfair situation. "Being lead on." When a woman accepts favors from a man of this kind, it does give him the impression that she is interested in reciprocating his feelings. That's when the situation is created where a guy feels he has "invested" in a woman, doing more for her than he would for a friend, expending effort he would have spent elsewhere had she been more honest/clear with him.

None of this is friendzoning. None of this is the friendzone. The friendzone is something totally different.

Quick diversion here: look, there are nice guys, who are nice respectful guys who usually think of themselves as such because they want a romantic relationship with a girl, not a one night stand that's hot and heavy between the sheets. And then there are "nice guys" who are kinda the same as "bad boys" only they want to get into your underpants with kind words and a few favors, as opposed to being skilled with seduction and knowing exactly how to pull off that knowing smile. This section only covers the former.

The friendzone is a situation where a guy meets a girl, and they become friends. Lets say they become extremely close friends. Sometimes, close friends fall for each other. This goes BOTH WAYS, but is more common I think, for guys to fall for girls. (in the teenage years, early twenties. Curiously it seems to flip back around in middle age.) As I only exist on one side of the equation I admit to potential sampling bias. Frequently the guy will offer a number of courtship favors to the girl, which the girl will gladly accept because hey! They're best pals! He's her closet chum. But wait, if she's single, she may lean on this guy for the emotional support and friendship she would normally receive from her significant other. He listens to her! Whenever she wants to go out, he's always available!

Quickly this will become a problem, because the girl will often treat the boy as a boyfriend, every way except when it comes to any form of physical affection. She will consume an unrivaled portion of his time, frequently interfering with him seeking other, more fulfilling attachments. This is a problem because the signals, for the uninitiated can be hard to read. She might share intimate details of her inner thoughts and life, something the guy might only expect to be trusted with if, in fact, there were reciprocal interest. Anyone who's had a crush also knows how easily our minds twist reality, so that the other person's ambiguous acts seem to confirm their affection. Therefore, the guy only becomes more confused when she refuses a romantic relationship.

Now, I still believe men and women can be best friends. I've had a few incredibly close friends of the opposite gender. But both sides always need to make sure that they're taking care to respect the other person, to make sure that their intentions are clear. The worst experience I had with a friendzone came about because the other person involved lied to me for over a year before I finally found out the truth: They were dating someone else. I couldn't help but feel that they had lied to me to continue my attention and affection, perhaps that wasn't the case. But either way, honesty is very important in any friendship.

Its complicated, and a huge part of it comes from boys and girls figuring out that the other gender doesn't date like they do, doesn't respond to the same things they do, aren't looking for the same things they are. Guys often go from romantic prospects to support roles by being too positive to the girls they're interested in. They provide emotional support, advice, compliments when asked for. Their approval becomes too easy to obtain, and as a result, they become less interesting as sexual prospects. So they learn not to do this. But during the early days of dating, it can be difficult to figure out what the rules are, where the boundaries lie, and which hills have mines buried under them.

So the friendzone is a real thing, and not necessarily bull. It isn't a case of guys expecting sex from girls because they are nice to them. It CAN be used to describe that, all terms can eventually be coopted by the unsavory, which is part of the problem. But that is not its intended meaning.

My response:

This is the way I've heard the term used by nearly everyone so far. And placing the onus of accepting or not accepting favors on the girl is vastly unfair. I used to have absolutely no understanding of social conventions. If a guy offered me a favor, sure! That's awesome! I wouldn't think that he was doing it to court me, and if he suddenly felt taken advantage of, after offering me favors and asking nothing in return, my reaction would be, "What the fuck?" You can't expect people to just pick up on subtext. This is what WORDS are for.

[Metcarfre]

You see, this is where we encounter and discover FEMALE PRIVILEDGE

ugh lol

Sounds like this guy not only doesn't understand girls or relationships, but also HOW FRIENDSHIP WORKS.

[Lyinginbedmon]

Subtext: That thing I have difficulty perceiving under normal conditions.

Which makes it really hard to determine what, if anything, the subtext is with the girl I'm talking to who has the same exact syndrome I do. Simultaneously however, I don't want to state the outright obvious in a conversation in case I come off too strong, desparate, etc. etc.

Human social interaction is haaaaard

[Matt]

Yeah, I legit LOL'd when I read

FEMALE PRIVILEGE

in all-caps like that.

It's like a neon sign that blinks: "Hi, my name is X and I don't have the first fucking clue what "social privilege" means."

-m

[Metcarfre]

[sic]

[Geoff_B]

So is what he says completely invalid?

[Metcarfre]

What part?