Friendship: the word has a generally positive connotation, and yet when it is used to describe a friendship between a woman, and a man who may have expressed romantic feelings for her, the word is seen as negative.
This concept has recently been named “the friend zone,” and while it is most commonly used in a joking manner, it perpetuates some problematic social stereotypes – particularly for women.
Perhaps, the main issue within the concept of the “friend zone” is the idea of sexual entitlement. The majority of the discourse surrounding the friend zone places the man as the “friend zoned” and the woman as the “friend zoner.” To put it simply, the woman is the one rejecting the man. The friend zone concept shames women for befriending men, rather than accepting their romantic or sexual advances, because if you’re a good person and you want to date someone, you should be able to, right? Not necessarily. This fails to take the other person’s feelings into account. Furthermore, we shouldn’t expect a romantic commitment or sex simply for being a decent human being.
We are socialized to view women as trophies we reward to men for good behaviour. Think about the plot outline of most male-centric movies: when the male character overcomes the conflict, and proves himself to be a good, heroic person, he ends up with his female love interest. As a result, we think of “nice” men as deserving of a woman’s time, love and affection. This has the effect of insinuating that men are entitled to certain things from women, and women are awful for rejecting men. Underplaying female desire is the other side of perpetuating male sexual entitlement.
The friend zone concept is rarely used to portray a woman’s rejection from a man. That is because women are taught that when they are rejected it is their fault. They weren’t smart enough, or funny enough, or beautiful enough.
This concept is further problematic, as it not only also assumes both members of the relationship are heterosexual, but suggests that romantic relationships are more valuable than friendship.
This concept is generally used in a joking manner, and therefore could be a way in which men handle rejection. However, the subjects of jokes are very telling of the way in which we determine societal norms. Ultimately, we are telling women that should they choose not to accept the sexual advances of a man, who was nothing but nice to them, they are horrible people.
Sometimes, no matter the good intention or number of kind gestures, the person you have feelings for doesn’t share those feelings. And that’s OK. It is not OK, however, to make a person feel guilty for not returning your feelings. You are not entitled to a reward for being a “nice guy.” You should be a nice guy all the time, regardless of your intentions romantically. If you need to clarify that you are a nice guy, you might not be as nice as you think.
