Accepting the Friend Zone
There are a lot of people in the friend zone. I can understand why people would want to leave it, however what’s wrong with just being a person’s friend? Being someone’s friend is never a bad thing. It means that they like you enough to keep you around. That trust that a friend has with another is stronger than that of someone you date.
The connotation that the friend zone is a bad thing is just something I don’t get. So that person doesn’t want to date you. So what? They still want to be your friend. If this person makes you happy, what’s wrong with accepting being their friend? This way you get to make them happy as well. If you’re only friends with someone with the hope of someday dating them, then you’re not being a good friend. You have a motive that’s driving you. That’s not nice, and it’s unfair to the person you like as well.
Think about it this way. You have a friend. A really close friend. One whom you trust implicitly. Suddenly they tell you that they love you. You don’t feel the same, so you tell them that you don’t have the same feelings, to be fair to them. They tell you to piss off because you won’t date them.
How would you feel if you found out that your best friend had an ulterior motive to being your friend? Pretty crappy I’ll bet.
I know that I’ve been friend zoned more than once in my life. I never really took that as a bad thing. Yes, it made me sad because I’ve wanted to date them, but at the same time, I’m glad I didn’t lose a friend because of my feelings. Just because that someone won’t date you doesn’t mean it’s the end of the world. If they reject your friendship afterwards as well, then they weren’t really your friends to begin with.
Really it should be a win-win scenario. If you tell them that you love them, and they love you too, congrats, you just got a relationship. If you tell them that you love them and they say that they don’t feel the same, but still want to be friends, then congrats, you maintained your friendship. Losing a friend is worse than losing a potential partner.
All in all, if you’re in the friend zone, don’t be upset. It’s actually a good thing. That person you love, may not love you the exact same way, but they do love you. They trust you with their problems above everyone else. They know that they can count on you to help them through any situation. They know you’ll support them If they’re in trouble, they know exactly who to call.
Be their friend. They love you for who you are.
“Being in the friend-zone” can also be sugarcoating for being on someone’s hook. The sad truth is that – even if they are in a relationship! – some people just seem to like having “what-if”s around them. I may be extrapolating unfairly because it happened to me twice as a teenager, and both times it was extremely painful when it ended, i.e. when I realized that they would never, ever feel about me the way I felt about them.
But honestly, how low is it to tell someone “I can’t date you, because our friendship is too important to me!” or “I can’t date you, I don’t wanna lose you as a friend!”?
In my eyes, a new partner should always become one of your best friends (if that won’t work, so won’t the relationship) – so if you already ARE very good friends when you start dating, you have a HUGE head start – plus you run into less risk of realizing that your relationship won’t work because you can’t really be friends with that person.
I feel this sort of behavior is so screamingly unfair because it’s just lying (at least by omission). Being someone’s friend is NOT A VALID REASON WHY YOU CAN’T DATE THAT PERSON! There always is another reason, however unpleasant to talk about it may be. It’s not doing someone who loves you a favor to avoid talking about what really keeps you from dating them. I guess that in most cases it’s simply the total absence of physical attraction. Hurt as it may to be told that your friend doesn’t find you sexually attractive at all, it is still better than being left with absolutely no reasonable explanation for why someone won’t pursue any romantic relationship with you.
Especially since this kind of insecurity can lead to the dog-like behavior you mentioned – you try to be an even better friend so that this person would FINALLY realize that you are not just a great friend but would also make a great boy-/girlfriend.
And that is why I think the term “being in the friend zone” has such a bad connotation to it…
I might be off on the meaning of “being friend-zoned” since I am not a native speaker, but I feel that the scenario I described fits the term. Sorry if this turned into a rant 😉