The Friend-Zone isn't what you think it is. Read More Here.

I’m going to talk about the Friend-Zone today, this is because despite what people might think, a) it does exist, and b) it is not what you think it is.

This prompts three questions: What is the Friend-Zone? What does it mean to be Friend-zone’d? How do you get out of the Friend-Zone?

So what is the Friend-Zone?

The Friend-Zone is a state of being, wherein you are romantically drawn to a friend, but rather than risk the ruining of the friendship you decide not to act on those feelings. Or that you do try and act on those feelings, but since they are not shared you decide to ignore future feelings of that kind and strictly stay exclusively friends with the person, and not letting your feelings have an impact on your friendship. But in actuality there is already an older phrase besides Friend-Zone; Unrequited Love. Now if you think of it that way, you end up having far less negative energy associated to it, plus it is easier to define: Love that is not returned or reciprocated.

What does it mean to be Friend-Zone’d? (And common myths about what is called the Friend-Zone).

The Friend-Zone is a form of rejection, plain and simple. But as I see it, in its’ truest form it really is one friend telling another that their friendship is too important to them to risk it ending poorly. Common problems with the term Friend-Zone can originate from people not being able to handle romantic rejection from a platonic friend. This truly brings into question whether the friendship was true in the first place. This can bring forth a whole new set of problems for people who go into the “friendship” with the expectation of making it into something more than just friendship. And that is not true friendship, just crappy people being crappy, because that isn’t friendship. This next piece touches on the fact that the Friend-Zone is commonly seen as a negative thing; the myths of the Friend-Zone.

“The friendzone is just a male constructed response to being rejected by a “friend”. (Let’s analyze this sentence).

Male: Girls and Women can be put in the Friend-Zone; it is not a strictly male “construct”. I know this of course because I have experienced it, by that I mean I have both been put in by and put girls in the Friend-Zone. With my previous clarification on what the Friend-Zone is, it should be clear that it is not a gender specific thing.

Construct: This implies that the Friend-Zone is not real. But it does, and as I mentioned it has existed longer than people know but under the name of unrequited love. It is not an unnatural thing, or at least when it comes to modern human nature. Romantic pursuits are all a game of risk versus reward, even more so when it involves friends. (More details here)

Being Rejected: Not a myth, there is a certain level of rejection associated to being Friend-Zone’d. But not for unknown reasons, because one of the common reasons people are angered by rejection is because the reasons are unknown to them or they believe that they are unreasonable reasons. (Which is ridiculous because that is taking away a person’s right to say No)

By a “friend”: Therein lies the key point. FRIEND. There’s a common phrase associated with the Friend-Zone: “Girls are not machines that you put kindness into and expect sex to pop out”. Now the problem that stem from this is that this is not true friendship. At any time where in which you are expecting to get anything but friendship in return for friendship it isn’t actually friendship at all, it is you being a douche canoe. Being irritated by someone saying no implies that the rejecter does not have the right to say No, and expecting all the same people to have all the same feelings as you is a completely absurd expectation. It is not your friend’s fault you have romantic feelings for them. People have “types”; what they are looking for, and personal preferences in relation to romantic partners. Just because they are your “type” it doesn’t mean you’re theirs and it completely invalidates their opinions if you are truly upset by that fact.

Just be a friend, what’s wrong with platonic relationships? Answer, NOTHING.

So when the above described people use the term friendzone it lessens it because they are not real friends. A real friend respects another friend’s choice. Where in actuality a real person should in fact respect another person’s choice, always.

Finally, how do you escape the Friend-Zone?

When it comes to getting “out” of the Friend-Zone, you have two options.

You can leave. This is the harsher of the two; you literally leave your friend. Not necessarily forever, but for now, for the purpose of speed I believe this to be the best option. The side effect of this is that you lose this person, they are no longer in your life, and when you become ready to return to their life there will be a rift, not always but at least a 90% chance, it will take a lot of work to fix what you broke.

The second option is to stop. You can’t necessarily, immediately stop having romantic feelings for this person. But you can stop. How you might ask, well simple, space and time. You don’t stop being their friend, but you spend less time with them, you give them space, or rather you give yourself space. And you try and find someone else or something else to direct your romantic energies towards. This will certainly take more time than straight up leaving, but it is the better option, you don’t make a rift within your friendship, and you keep your friend.

You could always do nothing, and hope for the best, that is always an option as well.

So herein lies my problem, I cannot find myself being romantically attracted to someone who is not my friend first. And if I “do” it is probably just a physical attraction masked as romantic. Is it even possible to be (romantically attracted to someone who is not your friend)? Well it would have to be for some people, because that is what dating websites etc. are for, finding someone to date whom you are not friends with. And there’s my problem with those for me. Yet I still find myself constantly returning to dating sites and apps, like PoF, OkCupid, Tinder, and Bumble. But sadly what they don’t have are sites like that for making friends, probably because some people would abuse the use of them to try and find a relationship be it physical or romantic, and as previously mentioned if one person is looking for something romantic and the other person is looking for something platonic it just doesn’t work.

In conclusion, it’s hard to control who you develop romantic feelings for. And sometimes they are directed towards your friends, if your friends don’t feel the same don’t be a dick about it, let your friends just be your friends, and treat them as such. Actually in general if you develop feeling for anyone, and they are not reciprocated, accept it and move on.  Also friends are great, don’t mistreat them, they are essential to good living. 

The Seven Types of Friends You Have.

In an attempt to get my blogs focus off of the string of posts on romantic love I will be doing a short series on a different and more important kind of relationship, the friendship. Well kind of, and mostly. So without further delay in a similar style to buzzfeed, here are the 7 types of friends you have.

1. Let's start at the top, the pinnacle of non-romantic relationships. The supreme relationship, the Best Friend. The first person you go to, you tell them anything, everything. They are the easiest person in your life to talk to, you share secrets, inside jokes, and even if you're apart for any period of time it’s as smooth as butter to just slide right back into where you were pre-separation. They are your favourite person in the world. There have been books written, movies made, and songs sung about best friends, and still they haven't quite captured the true essence of the Best Friend. Best friends are important, and not just to you as a person, but as a thing to have and to be, they make you better, and you make them better. It truly is hard to put into words what a best friend is, they can be very much indescribable. 

2. Now let's move on to Close Friends, these aren't your best friend, you might tell them things but not to the extent that you do your best friend. These are the people that may fit into the below explained categories initially but have surpassed the limitations, these are the people you want to spend time with socially but not all the time, they don't always necessarily make it better. They are the people you choose to have in your life. You care about these people, but you wouldn't drastically change your life for them. Unlike with your Best Friend you can live without a close friend. I have this belief that if close friends are meant to be, they will. And this sparks a quote, Jeff Goldblum's character Dr. Ian Malcolm from Jurassic Park, "Life, uh, finds a way," which I believe the same goes for true close friends.

3. Your Oldest Friends are just that. The friends that you've had for the longest time. These are your neighbours growing up, your cousins, the children of your parent’s best friends, the kid from Sunday School who happened to be your age and start at the same school for kindergarten as you. These are the people whom you have the most inside jokes with for the reason that you've spent the most time with them. Because they've known you longest, they know your past, what you've been through, all the things you dealt with growing up. They've been there for you in the past, and even if you haven't talked or spoken in a while you still hope that if you need them or they need you, that you'll still hope that if you need them or they need you that you'll still be there for each other. And in the end, it really does just come down to a matter of time.

(This next one is a concept I've been working on for a while.) 
4. The Second Class Friend, or Second Glance Friend; either one or both work. These are not your close friends, these are not the first thought friends, and these are not the friends you think to call or text on your first scroll through your address book, maybe during a second glance through though. The S.C.F.s are the easiest to reschedule or break plans with because you're not that close to begin with (right? Only if it's mutual after all). This is not the best kind of friendship as one might guess, for either of the people involved, the person who is the S.C.F. can end up feeling left out, unimportant, forgotten about, and inversely making people feel those things is a pretty shitty thing to do to people. They may not end up being all that close to you, but they are still people none the less. As much as people might not be your best friends, or close friends, it doesn't mean that they have to feel lesser or second class, the primary word is friend after all.

5. Facebook Friends (I feel oh so tempted to just leave that one just as it was, and add no explanation behind it, but I do also feel as though that would be a bit of a cop out.) Unlike the S.C.F. there is no doubt about the level of friendship between you two, you have no filter on who your Facebook Friends are, you can collect Facebook Friends. In the long run this might seem harsh but Facebook Friends are inconsequential, they can run the gamut from people that you once met at a concert, to people you worked with for a month, to those people you went to high school with and don't talk to. 

6. On to Work Friends. Common misconception is that you don't actually have to work with your Work Friends. These are the friends of convenience, you might work with them, you might have a class with them, or even just live near them. This is a friendship precipitated on proximity. You befriend these people as a means of survival, to not rock the boat, or to even just combat the monotony of everyday life. These are basically entry level friends. Because there's the most growth potential there, these are the people you tend to spend a decent amount of time with. This is all of course within which ever given social construct that brought you together, you don't tend to spend much if anytime outside of the social construct with these given people.

7. Lastly Internet Friends. These are not conventional friendships, you don’t have to have necessarily met these friends, but they also don't have to be from the internet either. The term Internet Friends can encompass pen pals. These are distant friends, but not necessarily physical distance. But even if it isn't a physical distance, you don't spend physical time with these friends. These friendships are not immediate, meaning that you can't have the same communication expectations of these friends as others, you have to give your internet friends time to reply, time to read what you need replied to. In saying this it does not mean that you can't get close to your internet friends or that they can't be relied upon because they can be, but you can't just call them up in the same way you would with a close friend. But they can also be your most patient of friends, because in the same way that you can wait for them, they wait for you. They don't tend to leave overly easily and they tend to be quick to hop back into an old rhythm after a long period of not talking. They are good friends to have, but not if they happen to be your only friends.

Finally, Acquaintances. Now I know I said 7 types of friends, and acquaintances makes 8, but acquaintances aren't your friends. They are people you know, or have met maybe once or twice before. They are pre-friends, they are those people you work with and don't want to be friends with but put up with them because you feel obligated to, they are even the person you made out with that one time at a party. But in general the interesting thing about acquaintances is that they are not as the word implies, quaint, they don't tend to last, they fade into the void. In saying all this I should make sure to reassure you that you are not unfriendly towards these people but they are wholly not your friends. I don't want to say that they don't matter, but it's just that they don't matter to you, just yet, they could but they also couldn't. I swear I am not trying to make the existence of acquaintances sound bleak, but if I am explaining the types of friendships I feel as though I would be amiss if I were not to mention them.

Now, I am sure I didn't cover every single possible type of friendship because they are many and varied and as "predictable" as human behaviour might be, it is strange weird and confusing, and therefore cannot necessarily be defined in average terms. But hopefully, this helps in some way, maybe just informs, but maybe not help per say. I wrote this to help illustrate that non-romantic relationships can be just as weird and complicated as romantic ones, once again because people are weird. And if anyone tells you otherwise they are wrong.

Post Script: As you can see beginnings and endings are still not my strong suit in writing these. But I am writing, and that's what truly matters in the end.