The Friend Zone is Not Real

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Let me start this off direct to the point-- while it sounds heartbreaking to be in the so-called friend-zone, I don't think it is a real place that suddenly exists when your favorite person doesn't want you to be more than friends. The friend-zone is just what you label your cowardice, when you could just tell them straight up that you like them instead of slowly befriending them and showing them the signals that sometimes not all brains could comprehend. You showed up being oh-so-friendly, and that could lead to a lot of things, so in the end when it doesn't turn out the way it was planned it doesn't really mean he/she put you in the friend-zone. You did. You placed yourself in that situation.

So for example, you get attracted to somebody and your initial plan would be: "I NEED TO BE FRIENDS WITH MY CRUSH ASDFGHJKL"

That is the lamest, initial plan ever. That is, if you do not know the difference between friends and acquaintances. Being friends with your crush is a play safe, because you don't even know if you're part of the percentage of people who get married to their friend/best friend according to the Stats. An acquaintance is knowing a person, so slightly, without being a close friend.

Basically, you don't have to be really friends to start dating. This is the modern world. Have some confidence (or if you have a lot of it, tone it down or else the magic wouldn't work) to introduce yourself first. Being mere acquaintances is enough to ask somebody out later on, to tell them your real intentions of getting to know them better not as a friendly friend but as someone who initially likes them. You shouldn't really make yourself look like the second lead (it's always the best friend, I swear) if you want to end up with the main lead. So if you start being the second-lead, who are you kidding? YOU are the one making up a friend-zone for yourself, not the person you like. And things that are made up like that aren't real.

But what if the scenario is you were already FRIENDS with somebody and you wake up one day and find out you have a CRUSH on them? So the plan would be: "I NEED TO BE CLOSER WITH MY CRUSH ASDFGHJKL"

(There's not even a hint of friend-zone there, right? If you're thinking that there is, I think you're being too hard on yourself. Don't think of that friend-zone concept too much or you'll go nuts.)

You're not in the friend-zone, not at all. You're far more important to be in that if you're real friends from the start. There could be two things this could offer: one, it would be a positive thing where you "should remain friends" because there is a possibility that he/she will see that you could end up together some time in the future and you could take that as an opportunity; two, it is still a positive thing, though not as positive as the first one, because you would remain friends and that's it.

It's up to you, really, if you won't be contented of the friendship. If you aren't, that's where you fall: in the friend-zone you say-- because you're the one who would make it up for yourself, not the person you like. It's not real if you just made it up, right?

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Woman in Red Ink

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I am Epopoeia

7 years ago

I have been in such a place. I'm new here, and I wrote a poem about this. If any one is interested please do check. And above all this post is wonderful, and wonderful in art ❤

Luschka D.

7 years ago

What if the person made a move and the other rejected him by telling him that they should remain only as friends? :(

Woman in Red Ink

7 years ago

Then they're friends! Isn't that great? Now if that rejected person doesn't want to be just friends, she isn't in the friendzone at all, is she? If it doesn't make her comfortable to be just friends, why not stay as an acquaintance for it to hurt less? Sometimes we need to pull ourselves back and stop making it look like we could handle it if we remain "friends"...

Lakshya Datta

7 years ago

You make a good point, and I personally do agree with it. But I think that opinions have two types - emotional and unemotional. So I would imagine that if a friendzoned 'victim' reads this, they could have an emotional opinion which may not agree with yours. But that person is the one who really should read this, if only to figure out that only they can find their way out of this metaphorical zone.

Woman in Red Ink

7 years ago

Wow at least I know someone agrees with this. I've had a couple of experiences back then where people I liked didn't like me back, and I, being young and all, used to believe there is this friend-zone. I guess it just takes time for the emotional opinion to change and become a bit more rational.

Malika Bagass

7 years ago

Frankly , i do agree with You , all u've said is just Right !

Woman in Red Ink

7 years ago

Thank you, some people wouldn't agree with us only because, I think, they think of the situtaion with their emotions hindering them to judge it rationally. Funny because I've been there before

siddharth ravi

7 years ago

Umm this is an amazing post which could only be written by a logical(rational) thinker but do u not think that illogical(irrational) thinking is the reason we fall in love in the first place. If so how can we hope to be rational whilst irrationally longing to be with their one in any manner possible. So although in logical terms this makes perfect sense, it would be pretty unrealistic for a fellow human in love to think this logically, but kudos to this post, it helped me closure for everytime I thought I was rejected for being too nice or too friendly with a person.

Woman in Red Ink

7 years ago

I don't think falling in love is irrational, though. Logically speaking, we fall in love with reasons and sometimes reasons we know, sometimes with reasons we don't notice. So longing to be with someone isn't irrational not until you let yourself become irrational about it-- like letting decisions be led by your "heart" which I very much like to think is just the hypothalamus haha. Some things are just meant to flow naturally, if you meet people and like them, tell them. If they don't like you back, we should understand and love unconditionally, either love them still until you don't require them to love you back, or find another person who'll want to be loved just as much. I don't know if this would apply to every situation there is, but I am glad to know my post helped you with your closure. :)

siddharth ravi

7 years ago

Ok... ik I'm not really supposed to continue with the argument but for some reason I'd rather voice my opinion and hear the cons of it. So here goes, like u said the so called "heart" or hypothalamus is led to make a series of decisions which in turn makes u attracted to this person. Now if this process of being attracted was upon a logical basis, we would and should always like the best of people no? However as I have observed that is not the case. We may defend this decision by saying that this person we r attracted to is perfect for us. However on an absolute basis, there is just the best and the rest. Now loving a person may be due to several reasons but in the end it is for all intents and purposes a feeling or an attachment and at least up until now feelings have not been proven to be logical. So as this feeling intensifies so does the insecurity about ourselves around this person and basically our cowardice. Like u said this cowardice is what dooms us but it is undeniable that it is present. So there comes the factor of irrationality into the picture. About what we should feel after rejection, again ur speaking of the ideal reactions, and it isn't like I'm very experienced but people feel even more insecure about themselves and start believing that they r not good enough. I'm sorry for these long comments on ur post but I'd like to know if there r any alternatives to my way thinking. So thanks in advance.

Woman in Red Ink

7 years ago

As I've said, there will be reasons as to why we like people, but I wasn't saying that we will like them if they are the best. Because I've also mentioned that there can be reasons that we are unconscious of, or pretend to be unconscious of even. Studies in marketing suggest that, "While we can’t choose our emotions because they originate unconsciously, we can choose our conscious response to our feelings." So I think in the end, lingering feelings don't just suddenly decide to stay. We choose to have them. Also, by the appraisal theory, it is said that an emotion is a thought that's given a meaning; that how you appraise an event, based on the guidance of your preexisting cognitive networks, determines your emotional response to it. So if you say that emotions are illogical, you must have meant that the cognitive networks under those emotions are, because emotions can never not make sense. Although, I would like to clear out that I am not pushing you or anyone to make decisions all too "logically", since logic isn't about making decisions following anybody else's standard, but thinking of decisions that would actually make enough sense to our minds, where we hear the "aha" that becomes the sign of the "balance of the mind and the heart". Regarding your theory that it is only the "ideal reactions" that I have written, yes it was. Even you knows that it is the ideal reaction. The question here is, why would people choose to feel like they're not good enough? Probably because there was already a meaning stuck on the thought of rejection. That's what we could work on every day-- we can choose what to do with that emotion, and I can suggest that, as the saying goes, "if something hurts, then it is a sign for a change." We can move on, we just have to remind ourselves that at the end of the day, a rejection, or even a couple of them, shouldn't define us as any less than we are. We have to remember that they just speak of what we've been through, and how much guts we had to actually go through them. :) I hope you got my messy thoughts haha

siddharth ravi

7 years ago

Well according to me they were pretty ordered, answering every query of mine. Which is nice of u to take time to do. I have begun to understand ur way of thinking although my belief is that logic, although thought by many as relative, is absolute. I mean there's pros and cons to everything in this world and being able to choose an option where the pros outweigh the cons is what logic boils down to. The intricate pathways of our brain which decides our course of action r out of our comprehension. Hence I believe the path it leads us down, although affected by our conscious brain, is mainly due to innumerable undescribable thought processes which our conscious or logical brain has no hold over. Hence my conclusion that liking someone is about 90% not in our control. It may be due to our cognitive networks which is a part of who we are but that does not mean we really get to choose our crush. Thanks again for all ur time.

Woman in Red Ink

7 years ago

Yep we don't choose them, the subconscious does lol haha anyway thank you too for this conversation~

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