What's worse than the friendzone?

Pictured: me on the weekend.

Because everything on earth becomes trivial after the loss of a loved one, it only makes sense to go fully trivial, and bury yourself in the inanity of life.  Rave at what really grinds your gears, only as long as they're at arms' length enough so as not to hurt you.  Rail against the unfairness that small cars driven by female P-platers will almost always be more frequently tailgated than any other car or driver, that hangovers are getting worse, that music doesn't speak to you like it did when you were fourteen and every line from every song made you feel like you were going through a horrible break-up with someone you've never even met, but loved profoundly.  And nothing, nothing is more trivial than lamenting that men are from Mars, and women are from Venus.  So that's exactly what I'll do.

It's no secret that I'm a feminist.  I'm okay with the title, though I'm not okay with the reaction that it elicits from other people.  And if I wasn't entirely sure what being a feminist actually meant, I would be confused by my decision to be one, too.  I absolutely adore silky, satiny, lacy underwear and shirk all undergarments in shades of beige with a disdain that Wall Street executives probably reserve for, well, poor people.  I seriously contemplated buying a pink car, because the engine specs were decent, and as far as I recalled from my childhood, my Barbie never looked bummed out when I pushed her around in her giant, pink convertible.  I got all giggly when I had the good fortune to meet Cosmo Jarvis, a musician so amazing that I foolishly struck up a conversation with him about the world's least-sexy topic... Reddit.  Yeah.  Talented and attractive people make me dopey..  If you were looking for quantifiers of femininity, it's safe to say that I'm a Girl with a capital G.

Being a feminist doesn't preclude me from these facets of my identity, which is sweet, because I wouldn't sacrifice them for any cause... well, except for the pink car bit, which ended up being an insane whim.  Fun fact: most cars that come in pink are of a heinous shade, and can be bettered by other similarly-sized cars that aren't pushing for a twee "I don't know how to check my oil, I'm a girl!" demographic.  

Being a feminist means acknowledging and accepting that there is something wrong with a status quo wherein women who are murdered receive less sympathy if they just so happen to be sex workers.  It means finding it unsettling when female sexual predators are given more lenient sentences for the molestation of children than men, because "that's the luckiest ten-year-old-ever".  It means believing that nobody, man or woman, should be mocked for asking for emotional support through a trying time.

On a tiny, trivial platform, it means understanding that some differences between men and women are inane, moronic, and unreasonable.  It means acknowledging the sensitivities of the unspoken word and the implied negotiations between individuals, be they of the same gender or otherwise.  In short: it means doing away with the fucking notion of the "friendzone."

For those unaware (or blessed by virtue of having never experienced unrequited infatuation), the friendzone is a simple concept: that if you play your cards incorrectly upon getting to know someone whom you are romantically interested in - that is, by not projecting your "best self" or someone else's self altogether - then you will be consigned to the friendzone, a dark and decrepit place in which you are forever to be seen as "nothing more than a friend."  Every person who has ever been told "I care about you, but just want to be friends" by the object of their affection has felt the burn.  Rejection is hard.  But for some people, there is an inexplicable need to react to rejection with aggression.  To denounce the spurning party for "only wanting jerks/sluts", allowing bitterness to taint any interactions with the object of one's desire until their intended paramour awkwardly extricates themselves from a poisonous man-o-war embrace.  All the while, these sad, insecure people thrash around so wildly in the so-called friendzone that the entire friendship, which was a privilege and not a punishment, is decimated beyond repair.

Here's the dirty little secret to avoiding the friendzone: don't be an entitled jerk!

Sure, it's unfortunate when the person that makes you want to watch musicals and frolic in meadows isn't smitten for you.  It's a bummer.  Really.  But guess what? That person was adult enough to be honest with you their feelings! They think you're a friend!! That means they want to be able to support you through ups and downs, as lovers and partners traipse in and out of your life through revolving doors, and hope for you to be a similar supporter for them on their adventure, too!!!

How can this kind of mutual respect and camaraderie seem like something "less" than dating when they're both completely awesome, albeit different, things?

This might be controversial, but I'm of the opinion that there is something far worse than the friend zone: being hefted bodily into the "girlfriendzone".  You will know if you are currently in the girlfriend (or boyfriend) zone by the breadcrumb-trail of passive-aggressive implications that you're "leading [someone] on", or being resented if a friend or acquaintance's declarations of everlasting adulation aren't met with immediate enthusiastic reciprocity.  In the girlfriendzone, "that's really sweet, but uh, that's not how I see you" is an invitation for the spurned to pursue you more aggressively, because whilst your words weren't encouraging, you didn't sound totally committed to the rejection.  By contrast, stating plainly "I am not attracted to you" seemingly means "I'm literally a succubis, and the knowledge that I've broken your heart helps me get over the edge when I'm having evil, sinful bedtime hijinks with some other guy.  Oh, and the guy is a handsome jerk.  He probably plays some kind of team sport."

When we consign meaning to our interactions with the opposite (or same, or non-binary, whatever you like) sex, perceiving other people as potential nemeses with whom we must negotiate a relationship through butted heads and gender warfare only perpetuates the adversarial nature of dating.  If people see one another as mere conquests, begging to be taken, they disregard the other person's autonomy through necessity.  Nobody likes being told who or what they are.  Is it not utterly entitled and patronising to imagine someone else telling you that they know what's best for you, even as they refuse to consult with you about it?  

If the friendzone is a sad, poorly-lit room hosting a Lonely Hearts Club, the girlfriendzone (or boyfriendzone) is a noxious pit of snakes over which people suspend each other with Bond-villain level wickedness, declaring the ultimatum: "return my affections, or become dead to me!".  When I think of it like that, I sure know where I'd rather be.

I'll be the first to admit that I've been guilty of the self-indulgent "why don't they like meeeeeee" pity party in the past.  Spoiler alert: it did nothing for me.  All it did was ostracise people who could readily have been good friends, if I hadn't set my scope so narrowly that I figured romance was all they had to offer me.

I dated someone for four years.  We were friends for many more before that, despite the fact that he had feelings for me.  To this day I'm not exactly sure why, but people who didn't know either of us particularly well felt invested in the slight that my friendship had inflicted on him.  I was called all kinds of cruel names for my supposed "selfishness" by people who had never actually asked him how he felt about our friendship.  I was blasted for confining such a "nice guy" to the friend zone, whilst still being so presumptuous as to enjoy his company.  Yet when we finally had a discussion about the belligerence of those accusations, I was reassured that my friendship was more than enough for him... until one day, we both decided that it wasn't.  And I'm sure that for neither of us were those years of friendship a waste of time.  Not surprisingly, all the mud-slingers faded into obscurity sometime after, where they damn well belonged.  And if we hadn't dated? Then heck, he'd have still been a good friend for however long we may have remained friends.

Since re-entering the land of single people, I won't lie, it's been interesting.  It's a merciless meat market out here, though I'm having a blast.  But in getting to know people whose intentions aren't always of the PG realm, I have had to learn to assert boundaries in a big way.  And from various nasty little girlfriendzone experiences, I know enough about my principles that when somebody tries to guilt trip me or assert dominance over my favour, I recoil.  Vocally.  I'm less soft and malleable than I once was, but I like myself better this way.  The people I've discarded for befriending me with ulterior motives were never really friends anyway, so it's not as if I've lost anything of value.

So when your heart gets all fluttery at the sight of a message from your pal, but its contents are a lamentation of the ways her boyfriend is being mean, and she just wants to hang out and be allowed to feel her feelings with a friend, don't immediately assume that it's some sick game.  Because this is someone who has trusted you enough to be vulnerable around you, and, implicitly or explicitly, is optimistic that even if the boyfriend goes one day, you won't.

And when it's framed like that, does friendship really feel like such a second prize?

---

Not sure if you've been girlfriend-zoning someone? Then here's a handy self-diagnostic tool for your convenience. (Note: I know this graph is very anti-fedora, but if you like to wear them, don't be sad. It's not the fedora on a man's head that ruins him, but rather, the fedora in his heart.)