The Friend Zone Has Been Canceled
Unless you’re the male lead of an early 2000s romcom, the friend zone has been canceled. That’s what we learned this week on The Cooper and Anthony Show.
When we’re talking “friend zone” it’s mostly men, rarely women who get put in that lovers purgatory but women do get friend zoned too. You’re good enough to be a friend but not good enough to be loved like that. So, good-buy to well-meaning guys and girls who really want in or who made the grand gesture, sorry, you’re not hot enough.
Through the 2023 lens, the “friend zone” is misogynistic, infantilizing, highly toxic and has no place in modern society. It can still be the driving force of romantic comedies, memes and hilarious TikToks, but Millennials and Gen Zers have canceled the friend zone. Here’s why:
- Having friends of the opposite gender is important and it makes it seem as though men and women can’t be friends when of course they can
Friendship is a resource and plays an important role in our being who we are. The people we surround ourselves with reflects who we are. Not being friends with people of the opposite sex is a red flag about you. That kind of supportive, unconditional love is vital. The world can be a f*cked up place. We need our crew, our peeps, and our posse.
So, the idea that the “friend zone” is some kind of horrendous affliction cruelly imposed onto a scorned lover undermines a potentially solid friendship. Ok sure, your romantic advances were rejected. Boo hoo. Most men can move on just fine. Real men realize that having close female friends means they meet more women that way, not less. Women friends have women friends.
2. The “it’s romance or nothing” myth
Pop culture and countless dating sites drum into your head that someone you might be interested in calling you “bro” is a “warning sign” and that once you’ve been friend zoned there’s no turning back, when statistically and scientifically thats simply untrue. Studies show the opposite. 68% of married people started off as friends. There is no magical rule that once you are in the friend zone, there’s no coming back.
3. No one is owed romantic affection
This is the biggie. The friend zone implies that romantic reciprocation is something you earn and are owed. If you do all the right things, she doesn’t get to put you in the friend zone for the reason that you check all the boxes. But that’s not how love or sexual attraction works. Yeah, in the movies the lovable awkward nerd gets the girl of his dreams, and if she rejects him she’s the bitch. What if he’s creepy and weird and their sex drives are mismatched? A woman owes you nothing and sometimes when she says let’s be friends she means “go away, just don’t go away mad.” The friend zone is canceled because why should we stigmatize someone for being uninterested in another person?
4. It feels like women are just being manipulated
Rather than making an actual connection, guys doing everything they can to get into her pants and then getting rejected into the friend zone just feels like you were in the game, as reality show villains have said for decades, “for the wrong reasons.”
Being kind and generous to someone just for the sake of receiving romantic affection isn’t being a friend, it’s being a selfish douche. Rejection doesn’t turn you into a nice guy martyr stuck in the friend zone. It makes you an entitled prick who can’t take no for an answer. The “nice guy” syndrome and its best pal, the friend zone, ultimately victimizes the women who reject you and the men who use it as a tactic.
