The concept of a 'friendzone' has always confused me. Perhaps I'm liberal like this, but I seem to have met most of my male varsity friends through random Friars hook-ups, either with myself or with one of my res friends. To clarify my own understanding, the 'friendzone' is when a person makes friends with someone of the opposite sex, with the intention of never being more than friends with them. Relationships/hook-ups are considered to be completely out of the question. For this reason, I do not believe that the friendzone really exists.
Honestly, think about it. Imagine you (I'm taking it from a girl's point of view here) make friends with some random guy. You have no romantic interest in him whatsoever. During your friendship you never really consider being anything more than friends. You date other guys. He dates other girls. And then one day, unexpectedly, you look at him and think Huh. He's kinda cute. Does that really seem totally implausible? I don't think so. And I think that every person has, at some point or another (usually when newly single), looked at their opposite-sex friends and wondered what it would be like to hook up with them.
The problem is that many guys seem to lose interest in girls once they realise that they're not going to hook up. Apologies for the generalisation, but I'm speaking from my own experience. At the beginning of last year I had a brief romance with a guy who we shall name X. Later, around June, another new friend we shall name Y asked if he could take me out for coffee. When I entered into a relationship in September, both X and Y suddenly disappeared. I received no more Facebook messages and they seemed totally uninterested in conversation when I bumped into them in person. I shrugged it off, figuring that maybe they just had other things going on. Fast-forward 11 months to where I happened to be single over Trivar. First, I bumped into X. To my surprise he told me he had heard what happened and was sorry about it, and then struck up a long, involved conversation. Whaaaaat? Then I saw Y, who promptly hugged me and said that we should catch up sometime. Two boys, who had previously shown absolutely no interest in being friends, now suddenly seemed friendly again when I was single. Just to be clear, no I did not hook up with either of them.
What this seems to say is that guys are so unbelievably afraid of the friendzone that they'll go to extreme lengths to avoid it; even going so far as to stop being friends with a girl as soon as she's in a relationship. Now I have several theories as to why this may be so...
1) The guy only wanted to hook up with her and lost interest once that opportunity disappeared.
2) The guy was jealous of her boyfriend and didn't want to see her with him.
3) The guy felt guilty and didn't want her boyfriend to dislike him because he was always hanging around this girl.
4) The guy thought she wouldn't be interested in being friends.
In all seriousness, what is wrong with the friendzone? If you like him/her but can't be with them for whatever reason, why not just be friends? It's really not that bad, and if you genuinely get along with the person then it seems like a better option than just never speaking to them again. I've been friendzoned by several guys who I was once keen on, and now I wouldn't dream of hooking up with them. And who knows, maybe if - at some point in the distant future - one of those guys is single and I'm single, a drunken evening may lead to a fantastic relationship. Being in the friendzone is not a bad thing, gentlemen (and ladies). So stop with all these lame "OMG that poor guy has been friendzoned!" posts, because he probably has more of a chance with that girl than you ever will.
No comments:
Post a Comment