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Imagine being afraid of the ‘friend zone’
(hexbear.net)
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this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
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chapotraphouse
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platonic
And yet pretty much everyone I became platonic with I develop a crush on / slightly fall for if they remain cool.
As I said, the "friend zone" as a concept is generally a cognitohazard. Having romantic interest turned down hurts, yes, but anticipating "friendzoning" and seeing it as some antagonistic experience that must result in a complete cutting off of the other person just raises the antagonism in the dating pool that much more.
It fucking sucks that so few cishet men are willing to try an actual nonromantic friendship with a cishet woman and I think normalizing the idea of "if no sex, then disappear" just makes that worse.
Growing up gay, I would have done anything if it meant the maximum consequence for confessing my feelings to someone who wasn’t interested was a “no”. Usually the best I could expect was a reaction so out the fucking wazoo, it’s as if I had shot their grandma to death in front of them. Worst case would be my brain becoming a plaything for a med student by next morning.
I’ve got a feeling that if I’d reacted the same way to a straight lady asking me out, society would suddenly become enlightened as to the proper way to behave.
Neither is normalizing the idea of resenting the other person's emotions that doesn't mutually share in those emotions.
I have trouble telling between my crushes and squishes sometimes, so I just choose to label the feelings based on whether the two of us feel like getting naughty. If we're not doing naughty stuff together then it's a squish, and I choose to be happy to be spending platonic time with them
Dang I'm getting old wtf is a squish
It's a persistent feeling of platonic attraction towards a person. The platonic equivalent of a crush.
Haven't you ever had a friend that you were excited and happy to spend time with in the initial stages of the relationship? One who gave you butterflies in your stomach, but who you didn't want to date?
Platonic crush
Yeah the whole incel thing has really poisoned the well on a legitimate issue like this. It's kind of funny how some leftists will talk about context when it comes to the faults of former AES states but on other issues (especially ones like this, i.e. dating) they completely ignore context and sound like your average lib. Oh well I guess we all have to continue to grow.
I mean it works out for some people I suppose (for ex UlyssessT in this thread) but yeah I think remaining friends while still holding out hope is disingenuous.
I think it's both. Just like any other issue that socialists talk about, like racism, sexism, classism, etc. They can all be "dealt with" on an interpersonal level, but ultimately there needs to be a societal change.
what societal change do you think needs to occur about this issue?
Probably making it so boys and men have emotional support other than their partner or therapist and generally teaching them not to treat relationships as status signifiers or commodities. Unfortunately, that probably has to start young and we already have a bunch of shitty men floating around
ugh well put & good post.
One of the examples I remember is from r4r or one of the nerd dating spheres where someone wanted a partner who was smart, but not as smart as them. Obviously, they wanted her to smart enough to impress their friends (the ones who they constantly jockey for clout about intelligence with), but didn't really want to respect her or feel intellectually threatened. Which also says a lot about what they think of their friends, let alone their prospective partner they were looking for.
Yet again, something that can quickly and easily fixed by breaking down the umbrella concept of "smart" into categories, where you can have distinction in one or a few or even several, and still easily have space for someone else close to you to have their own combination/niche.
The same goes with power/authority. Break it down into its component parts, and all of a sudden stratification is drastically minimized.
Well the problem is that relationships aren't status signifiers. They are status, in the most concrete way possible.
Edit: Like it's an old truism, that certain kinds of guys will deliberately pursue making money more than actually trying to build their social skills directly because it can open more doors for you socially & "romantically".
Edit 2: What I'm getting at here is that "status" is an inherently social concept. It has to do with the people who you interact with on a day-to-day basis, & what you can expect from your interactions with them. In this sense, yes, somebody who doesn't have a lot of friends or any romantic partners, is objectively socially inferior to somebody who does. They are, by definition, valued less by the the people around them & are less socially integrated, as a consequence of that. And that itself will usually be the consequence of the person in question possessing some quality that is considered inferior by the society they live in.
The whole issue I think is something that just isn't really well addressed by any contemporary discussion on the matter, I think.
Maybe reverse the trend of turning dating into a commodified market for one. Apps like Tinder have really made looks be the sole factor in whether you even want to talk to someone. It's become so gamified that we essentially treat potential partners as some kind of stock investment. Also the digital world has really isolated us and we rarely even talk to people anymore except through text or instagram. I think electronic communication is great (I mean here I am commenting on hexbear) but not at the expense of real life contact (hence the "touch grass" meme). Maybe have community centers that actually appeal to people? I dunno, perhaps we need to look at what the Soviets and other cultures do to help people meet each other (https://youtu.be/teZw4-trPuE?feature=shared).
I actually agree with most of the above while at the same time I see the "being friends with someone that is otherwise not romantically interested is bad/impossible" take as being the equivalent of throwing dirt into the rejection wound. Maybe a friendship is impossible for an individual but systemically assuming it is only makes the dating scene a little bit worse by making it more antagonistic.
IMO, I think it's worthwhile for society to take an active interest in helping integrate kids & young people who are lagging behind socially. There are programs that claim to try to do this today, but I didn't really ever get any help, I just got told what to do & that I'd go in a windowless box if I didn't do that.
If you get to be 30 & you're still in that position, like I am idk how much there is that can be done, because a lot of the contributing factors to the issue have become ossified/terminal.
Socialization is very much a "rich get richer, poor get poorer" (if you'll excuse the analogy) situation, in my experience.
I agree here specifically because the "holding out hope" part is, both for the friendship and for the person maintaining that hope instead of accepting the friendship, or moving on without the friendship if they can't, which is also preferable to "holding out hope."
Accept the friendship if you can, earnestly work toward accepting the friendship if you're not all the way there, or move on. Those are the best choices.
I agree with everything you said, except this one here, every functioning long term relationship (and i mean decades long term) i saw in my life was evolved from this. Platonic friends are better at solving their problems in general, way better than people who came together cause they wanted to fuck each other.
While I have indeed been 'friend zone'd, I've had more than three platonic friendships turn into romantic relationships in my lifetime, which is the majority of my actual relationships. Obviously don't rely on it, maybe the key was that I went into all those friendships fully accepting that we might only ever be friends and that was fine.
It depends how long the platonic relationship has been. If it only been a few weeks or even months if you don't see each other often, moving over to a romantic relationship can go really well. If you're trying to turn a years long platonic relationship into a romantic one, yeah in most cases that I'd a fools errand.