December 4, 2012 • 40 mins
What is the "friendzone" and where did the term come from? How does getting in - and out - of the friendzone work? Can friendships survive the friendzone? (Studies say maybe.) Tune in to learn more.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to stuff Mom Never Told You from House stepworks
dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
and I'm Caroline, and today we're talking about the friend zone.
Do Do Do Do Do Do do scary place, Caroline.
(00:24):
Have you ever put somebody in the friend zone? Yeah? Not,
I mean not on purpose. It's not like I eyeball
somebody and I'm like, you're going in the friend zone drawer.
Oh wait, before we go any further, though, we should
clarify what the friend zone is. The friend zone is
not as it might sound, like, you know, the zone
(00:45):
of friend where like you see someone and you're like,
we will be friends. Oh yeah, and then you buy
candy together and eat it, share secrets. Uh No. The
friend zone is this pop cultural trope I would call
it that arguably began into or entered into our lexicon.
(01:06):
Uh in nine four with an episode of Friends in
which I think Ross got put into the friend zone
and Joey was all like, hey, ros, she's in the
friend zone and Ross is all like uh, and then
it just like balloon from there, and so yeah, the
friend zone is when it typically relates to straight guys
(01:29):
and girls being friends and either the guy or the
girl developing romantic and or sexual or I should say
sexual and or romantic feelings for the other person and
which goes unrequited. Yeah, exactly, you're just the other person
just thinks you're just friends and they want to keep
it that way. Yeah, you gotta stay in the friend
(01:51):
zone exactly. Well, you know, my dude roommate actually makes
fun of me because I have a lot of dude
friends and occasionally a crush will develop up, uh where
I am the object of the crush and I don't
really notice it, or I don't notice it, or I
am in denial because I don't want to think that
like my buddies, my friends feel that way because I
have inadvertently put them in the friend zone. But there
(02:15):
was one instance where I literally I had no idea,
Like sometimes you know, and you just live in like
a little denial bubble about us. Is a nice kid
to light dinner for two friend these roses? Well know
that actually happened to somebody brought me flowers and I
thought we were just friends up into that point and
then yeah, that's a whole other story. But yeah, this
one time, No, I was friends with this guy had
(02:35):
no idea that he had any feelings for me, as
far as I knew, we were just hanging out having
a good time. Um. He never let on, He never
said anything. He never like stared longingly into my eyes
or anything like that. Uh. And I started going out
with a friend of his, and not only was he
hurt and upset, but he cut me entirely out of
his life. And not only did he do that, he
(02:57):
then proceeded to go to some of our mutual friends
and talk smack about me. Oh that's but I was
gonna say, if it had just stopped with he cut
you out of his life, I was gonna say, hey,
you know what, the friend zone can be tough if
if you're if your little feelings get out of control.
But that kind of negative behavior. Yeah, so I think
(03:17):
he was in an angry friend zone. The friend zone
of anger and anger can come with a friend zone,
which is why it can be such treacherous territory, which
is also why we wanted to talk about it today
because there has been some scholarship on this concept of
the friend zone. UM, I feel like I also, um,
(03:38):
speaking personally, have been I don't I don't know if
I've been put in the friend zone more than I have.
I have friends zoned people. I've done both, you know,
I've kind of it's more like like getting put in
the friend zone is more just kind of getting you
know it puts. It's always been a way of putting
the relationship in check, of saying like, no, this is
(03:59):
this is where this needs to be. They should if
we move forward, it will have terrible consequences. But we'll
get into those kinds of things later on. But the
problem is, like, the reason the friend zone even exists
is because and why perhaps like we have all of
these like problems with it or questions about it of
(04:21):
like avoiding getting into it and how to get out
of it and what do you do? Is because, I mean,
guys and girls haven't been friends for all that long. Yeah, exactly.
This is from a great New York Times piece by
William Derrick Stewitz from April. He said that, you know,
back in the day, men and women existed in different
social spheres and that opposite sex friendships were unthinkable. Yeah,
(04:46):
and then he uh postulates that feminism, first wave feminism
comes around, and that is our first step toward these
cross sex friendships. You have the terms boyfriend, girlfriend appearing
around the eighteen nineties, around the same time that the
term feminism is coined, and then later on, getting into
(05:09):
the twentieth century, you have the early twentieth century the
idea of the new woman. She's intelligent, she's well read,
she's outspoken, her relationships with men are more about seeking
mental partners and companions rather than just being a a
wife to be. And then in the nineteen sixties and
(05:30):
seventies was second wave feminism. The it undergoes this further
step of breaking down those boundaries of saying, hey, you know, really,
like if we want to be equals in the workplace
and equals at home, and equals uh the rank at
the skating rink, yes, then we gotta learn, like for real,
(05:52):
zies this time, how to be friends. Yeah, because with
equality comes working in the same sphere, basically, you know,
working in the same arena. And so these demands for
equal rights during the sixties created the conditions for friendship.
The writer said, uh, you know, it becomes commonplace rather
than strange or titilating to see a member of the
(06:12):
opposite sex at work. So now you just have to
suck it up and deal with it, it becomes not
as weird. Yeah, but there is a big difference between
just seeing and interacting with with people at work and
being friends and being friends. Yes, uh, and there's uh
some a lot of scholars actually suspect that we might
(06:35):
have gotten more than we bargained for in terms of saying, hey,
let's all, let's all be friends. Uh. This is coming
from a study published uh this year in twelve, coming
out of the University of Wisconsin, and it's called Benefit
or Burden Attraction and cross sex Friendships, And it was
published in the Journal of Personal and Social Relationships. And
(06:58):
I'm going to read a little bit of a media
quote from this study because I feel like it sums
up so well what we have done and why the
friend zone is so just fraught with with problems for
for folks. So the authors are right, cross sex friendships
appear to be more complex than both same sex friendships
(07:21):
and romantic partnerships, which have a clear place in hetero
sexist society. Yeah. And I would say again, like, as
an aside, the friend zone is a very heteronormative concept.
I would say, in one of the first papers on
cross sex friendship. There, researcher proposed that cross sex friends
confront four major challenges for determining the type of emotional
bond shared, facing sexuality and the relationship, presenting the relationship
(07:45):
as an authentic friendship to outsiders, and addressing equality in
the context of gender inequality. Not to mention, and this
would make number five potential jealousy directed at said friend
by possible boyfriend's girlfriends spouses. So what a goolash of problems?
(08:07):
That sounds delicious. It's a meati quote and a ghoulash
of problems. I think I'm hungry for a roast beef sandwich. Um. Yeah.
The study looked at eighty eight pairs of undergrad opposite
sex friends. They found some very significant differences in how
men and women experience opposite sex friendship, mostly that your
(08:28):
your male friend wants to sleep with you yeah, and
your female friend, if you're a man, does not one
sleeping well. And again this is all in uh like
a heteronormative context because they're straight cross sex friendships and
the researchers were so determined to get to the truth
of friends true feelings for each other that they not
(08:48):
only separated them but before they would go in one
by one to divulge their feelings or lack of feelings.
They made the friends promise each other probably pinky's where cute,
friendly kind of way, that they wouldn't tell the what
they talked about to the other person. Yeah, men were
(09:08):
much more likely to think that their friend was attracted
to them and more likely to act on this mistakenly
perceived attraction. So like, if the man really like the woman,
he kind of projected those feelings and assumed that the
feelings were mutual and it was just a matter of
time before they would either date or hook up or whatever.
But women are blind to It works for women just
(09:28):
in the opposite direction, because women were generally not attracted
to their male friends and they assumed the lack of
attraction was mutual. Oh man, that's some that's some miscommunication happening.
Miss non communication happening. There was also a follow up
study by these researchers. They've talked to two forty nine
(09:50):
adults and found that both men and women did cite
unrequited romance as a potential negative in cross tex friendships.
So we know that this there's a potential for this
to happen. This isn't some kind of surprise finding that
sometimes a friend can make you think sweet things, but
(10:12):
there was a different gender difference, and that men were
still significantly more likely than women to list the possibility
of romantic attraction as as a benefit. And also the
older the men got, the more likely, like the wider
that gender gap grew so older at which I think
might have to do with how maybe a difference in
(10:33):
how men perceive the role of women in their lives
as they mature an age from short term mating possibly
when you're a young un to longer term companionship. Anyway,
uh so, so how do you let's talk more about
the specifics of the actual zone of the friend the friends.
(10:54):
Lemon Drop that that good old website lemon Drop in
septem broke it down different types of end zone or
as opposed to the zone e. There's the never was friend,
so you start chatting up a girl you're interested in,
but then end up being platonic pals whatever. Then there's
the always was friend. So you've seen this person through
ups and downs, you know, holding her hair back when
(11:15):
she's puking, going shopping, whatever, and then one day you
just realized like, holy goodness, I want to get naked
with this person. Yeah, and that's the stuff that terrible
rom com movies are made up. Yeah, well, they all
lead you to believe that, Like, I don't know, and
this could be part of the argument for why the
friend zone is such, you know crap. But like all
(11:35):
these movies just lead you to believe, like if you
just hold out, it'll work out. And you know what,
based on my experience, it doesn't a lot of the time.
Sometimes it does. I have transitioned friendships into relationships before,
but it can be sticky. And did it include probably
a makeover montage for him or for me? Either one.
(11:56):
I just love a good makeover montage. I do work
on acrosteatic glasses. But according to this Lemon Drop article,
there are different types of friend zones as well, and
I and I do agree with this. There's what the
author calls a safety zone where you didn't want to
come on strong and scare off. And this is obviously
like directed at men. So you never made your objective clear,
(12:19):
so you just kind of tried to stay neutral. Yeah,
And like the longer you go without saying something or
indicating something, the more she just assumes I will, you know,
we're just friends, and then comes the zone of total confusion,
where it's you're essentially just dodging mixed signals left and right,
where one minute you think that she's flirting with you,
and the next she's talking about some other dude and
how it's pecks are like to it's huge. Yeah, Well,
(12:43):
there is an argument about the friend zone being terrible.
I mean, obviously the friend zone is terrible for a
lot of people involved. But I had tried to transition
a friendship into a more serious relationship and it just
it just wasn't gonna work. I mean, it just logistically,
like everything, nothing was gonna work. And so I asked
(13:03):
the guy, like, well, you know, you've been in my
life for a really long time. Can we stay friends?
And he said, Caroline, we can be friends. When that
doesn't feel like I'm coming in second place, Oh yeah,
that's tough. Yeah. And so this whole coming in second
argument was written about in the Chicago Tribune in January
two thousand seven, and the writer Gina b says that
(13:24):
when a guy agrees to be quote unquote just friends,
he's forced to stifle his attraction while regularly seeing and
talking to a woman he's attracted to, and that can
make anybody crazy. And the thing is too like those
kinds of dejected feelings and possible uh, negative reactions can
obviously like affect you, whether you're you know, in whatever
(13:47):
your position you're in. Yeah, I mean it's it's negative
and unfortunate for everybody, because if you like someone and
you pin hopes on them, you you want to hope
that it works out, whether that's just hooking up with them,
you know, or actually turning it into a serious romantic relationship. Well.
And then there's also even though all a lot of
this stuff is really heteronormative and often displayed as like
(14:12):
a cross sex thing, they're they're often portrayals now too
that you see more and more in pop culture of
straight person or gay person pining for straight or gay friend,
you know, such as the Jennifer Anderson and Paul Ruddy
movie The Object of My Affection? Who Wouldn't pine for Paul?
(14:32):
Read though that's true? Uh and where yes, like Jennifer
Anderson's like wishing and hoping that perfect gay Paul Rudd
will one day see her and be like those boobs. Yeah,
well but you know what, not to trivialize anybody's feelings
in those situations. But like, at least if the friend
that you're pining for is of an opposite sexual orientation, yeah,
(14:54):
that's then easy. You have to just accept that. Yeah,
it's just a matter of you working on it and
being like, Okay, I've just got to get a grip
and move on and feel better about this. But if
it's somebody of like you know who, you're the gender
that thy ever, then then it's harder to move on
because you're more likely to feel it's personally you know,
(15:15):
it's about me. I'm being rejected well, and you get
along so well, you are compatible, you assume on these
many levels, and the only missing piece is sex usually
I mean not to be and I'm not saying like
just like doing it, but like all of the chemistry
that goes along with that. But but this whole friend
(15:38):
zone concept is also controversial to feminists. Younger feminists out
there take a take a big stink with the even
like just the existence of the idea of a friend zone. Yeah,
there are a couple of bloggers, Stephanie Willis and Alice DeRosier.
Derosier's over at fem inspired willis. Ever, at least likely,
(16:01):
they argue that the friend zone is this misogynistic u
creation from men that they they don't want to accept
that a woman is not basically a prize at the
end of friendship. Well, and it's also a thing of like, uh,
you know, like, well, it's totally wrong if a guy
thinks that he's like invested something in a woman, you know,
(16:23):
there should not be ownus, should not be on her
to have to, you know, make him her boyfriend. And
this relates back to a two thousand seven post on
Shakespeare Shakespeare Excuse Me by a guy named Jeff Pech
writing about what he calls the nice guy, and that
is capitalized the nice guy. He describes it as. A
(16:45):
nice guy is a guy who tells you and bitter,
in a bitter, resentful tone, that women don't date nice guys,
they only date bad boys. And because he's two nice,
women only view him as a friend. And there's often
a lot of aggression that goes along with this of
you know, and this is again is the capitalized nice
guys saying like women are just horrible because I'm perfect
(17:07):
and I treat women incredible and and they just want
to run off with You know that guy who rides
a motor there's always a leather jacket involved, some palm aide. Well, no,
I Actually the thing is I knew a guy like
that though a couple of years ago. I mean I
knew a guy who fancied himself to be like the
ultimate capitalized nice guy, and yet was so bitter and
(17:32):
angry towards all women that he had gotten consistently put
in this friend zone. Like he he was basically like
railing against all women, saying I deserve something now that
I've put in all this work about being a nice
guy for so many years. Well, I think the difference
is the way that you can easily get trapped, maybe
(17:53):
in that mentality of saying I am whether you're a
nice guy or a nice girl whoever, and I I
don't care. Um, I think you have to watch out
of Uh. Well, you know, I'm great on paper, I
treat people amazing, but I'm always stuck in this like
friend space. You might need to just like re examine
(18:14):
how you go about forming your relationships because there is
a different There are differences in the way that you
initiate friendships and you initiate more than friendships. And yes,
friendship is a wonderful foundation to have for the capital
our relationships in our lives. That's fundamental. But if it's
(18:35):
happening all the time, there might be there might be
something that a piece of the pie that you're not eating,
but I like it. I want pie. It's pie season. Um, yeah,
at last, that fin inspire. Basically, her point was that
she resented the assumption that a man who and who,
a man who claims to be a nice guy in
(18:57):
the friend zone deserves this will In's love, et cetera. Um.
She goes on to say, women don't only exist to
date or have sex with you. Yeah, and uh sefinitely.
Stephanie Willison, you mentioned, who's a blogger at at least
likely wrote a piece about the nice guy and about
how much she takes issue with the concept of the
(19:18):
friend zone. And it was focused around a very specific
anecdote about a nice guy who turned into a not
so nice guy when he asked her out and she
was like no, no. He tried to kiss her, that's
what happened, and she turned him down and then he
became very rude toward her, and the post attracted a
ton of attention in the comments, and a lot of
(19:42):
really negative comments from men who were like, oh, sorry
for being nice, and then you know, yeah, and then
a lot of well, a lot of those comments did
echo what you said earlier about like well, I mean
I was her friend for years and I supported her,
and I listened to her talk about other and and
then she like goes off and keeps dating these jerks
(20:02):
or whatever, and it's it's funny, funny, ha ha, funny, weird, funny, sad. Uh,
the interactions that are happening on the board, I found
it very interesting. The responses, especially from the women coming
out of the woodwork to support Willis. Basically a lot
of them were very kind of sarcastic, supportive comments like
(20:22):
mocking the men who were commenting, saying, you know, appreciate me,
I offered you common decency, now put out, you know,
like really kind of making fun of those men who
were offended by the friend zone piece, right, I mean,
like I will say that, uh, those instances of the
being the friend of the person who's in the friend
(20:43):
zone acting out, that happens. That certainly happens, and this
you know, clearly that had happened to Willis, And I
understand the the expectation that if you invest in someone
and that they should then pay you back in some
way is that's just that's not gonna work out. That's
just a false expectation that you're creating for yourself. Um.
(21:06):
But I do have some sympathy for friend zoned guys
and girls, and I do think that this happens more
two guys. Uh. Just this is purely anecdotal, where maybe
the anger also comes from not so much expecting them
to uh you know, like that their vaginas or prizes
(21:28):
or something like that that they should win after putting
it all this time. But I have seen women friends
zoned men in the way to where they substitute emotionally
as boyfriends. They have everything that they need from this
guy who is obviously pining away. Otherwise he wouldn't probably
be spending so much time and no, should his reward
(21:51):
be therefore she must have sex with him. No, But
I've seen it to almost an abusive extent to where
at some point, you know, the guy wakes up and
it's like, oh wow, I'm just being blood dry emotionally
and I'm not getting anything out emotionally, you know, as
well as sure physically. Yeah. Well also, I mean relationships
(22:13):
like that too, can just get in the way of
finding the person that you're supposed to be with, the
person that actually does want you to love them and
dedicate your time to them. And I mean I say
that as uh, like I saw a girl who has
a lot of guy friends. Um, and like my roommate
that I reference, you know, like we spend a ton
of time together. We're also single, you know, when we're
(22:35):
in relationships and stuff, I guess we spend less time
with each other, but we've just known each other for
so long that there aren't any expectations. I mean, he
really is like my brother. And I'm not just saying that.
I'm really like his sister too. Um yeah. And I mean,
and that's a that's a good point to about the
friend being in the way of you finding anyone else
(22:57):
if you are, you know, looking to get into a relationship,
And sometimes that can be the fault not of that
person in the friend zone, but of the other person
manipulating you into always you know, keeping you at arm's
length and giving you just enough to where you'll stick around.
And sometimes it's subconscious, but sometimes I do think it
is pathological. Um so advice for what happens once you
(23:23):
get in the friend zone, or for avoiding getting in
there in the first place. And this is where we
get into friends and listeners. Friends, it's one of the same,
listen to some friends all of us. Uh, this is
where we get into dicey advice territory. The internet is
exploding with friend zone advice. And yeah, like it is
(23:45):
horrible except for the stuff that you hear on this podcast.
So exactly lucky you for finding this well. Dr Jeremy
Nicholson on Psychology Today in December posted some advice and
and I think it's terrible. Yeah, this, uh, this is wow. Yeah,
(24:06):
it's it kind of reads like the rules for men
or I guess for women too, but it also reads
like here, how here's how you can be a little manipulative. Yeah,
you want to dial down that interest, make yourself scarce,
create some competition by making other friends. Is the worst.
I think that's the worst because read what he says
(24:28):
is when you need to create competition, you need to
make other quote unquote friends. Those quotes are his, so
he's saying, like, just find a bunch of people to
shove in your life. Now, it's specifically of this, he says,
of the sex you're attracted to. So if this is
a dude, find a spare woman around, maybe lots of them.
Call up Romney. See if he's got that binder you
(24:49):
can send down. Yes, get the binder. Call these women up.
Because Nicholson is saying jealousy is good, and if you
don't see jealousy, then maybe they're just not interested in
being more than friends. Yeah, and also, like I guess,
find some time to do all of this stuff, including
asking your friend to do things for you, because apparently
(25:10):
the sign of love is how many favors you get
from a person, and then once they do all of
those things like become jealous and bring you take out
or something like that, you want to reward them. So okay,
let's just take all of that and say that's what
you don't do. Because if I found out that a
friend of mine was plotting to like increase my investment
(25:34):
in that kind of way and make me jealous, that
is not a friend of mine. Now that and I've
i've i've yes, I've seen this happen to other friends
and it's disgusting, like you're not you're not a true friend.
You are acting in a friendly way a lot of
the time, you're maybe like going out for drinks with
this person, hanging out, talking on the phone, doing whatever,
(25:56):
you know, being activity partners, et cetera. But if you're
really just waiting around to get in that person's pants
in the meantime, you're manipulating them, that's that's not friendship. Yeah.
The only bit of advice that I would say pay
attention to, uh is make yourself scarce there. Sometimes when
you have been friend zoned, you do need to make
(26:19):
yourself scarce for both of you. Yeah, you have to
re establish the boundaries because once you cross it, Unfortunately,
you don't even have to you know, they say sex
changes everything. You don't even have to have sex. You
don't even have to kiss or touch to change a
lot of things with a friendship. But we've been talking
a lot to the guys. Let's talk to the women
over at glamour dot com. And this is from January
(26:41):
of M and I and I like a little bit
more of what she has to say. She's like, you know,
ask him out right away. Hey, there you go. Yeah,
don't wait too long, don't make them think that you're
not interested by you know whatever. Just go ahead, get
it out there, and then you can figure out this
is weird though, they're like, and then worry about if
there's chemistry yeah, and like, don't be subtle. But this
(27:04):
is when I was Okay, I'll just tell you what
it is. Don't be goofy or self deprecating. People want
goofy friends, but they don't want to sleep with goofy people.
Save goofy for the postdate. Yeah, and in this case,
if that is true, I will be friend zoned for
the rest of my life. So screwed I am. So
I read this, So I'm reading this for the episode
(27:26):
I'm studying up, I'm reading friends and stuff, and I
immediately turn to my room and I'm like, Jeff, do
men not want goofy women or did just people not
want goofy people? And he was like, I, I'm obviously
not the right person now because we are both very
goofy ridiculous people. I like goofy nous. But I feel
like I see what she's trying to say, like, don't
(27:48):
just be the class clown, Like let the person know
that you're actually serious about them. But are you really
telling me not to be goofy at all? Yeah? I
mean that's just bad advice. How many times do we
have to say that and then going on with the
typical Steve like don't be too available? Established I thought
this was interesting. Established physical familiarity. So whenever possible, like
(28:09):
when when you do make that joke, Caroline, just go
ha and casually tap him on the shoulder, you know,
or stroke his cheek or push his nose. Yeah, just
stroke his thigh and see if that's awkward. Um. And
there's a little bit more basically like what you need
to do. I don't think that we have to run
through all of this questionable advice, like if you if
(28:32):
feelings start to bubble up, you need to take some
time to yourself figure out what's going on, what is
motivating you, What is it about the relationship that you
really like, and maybe you should just take those those
are you know, signposts of what what you really want
in a relationship with someone else. You know, if it's
(28:53):
like a safety factor of familiarity, shared interest, Uh, take
it as away to learn more about what you like
and you don't like. Yeah, I mean self awareness is
definitely key. Because this is from Lemon Drop. They say
to really look and listen for signs of mutual attraction,
but be careful that you're not just hearing what you
(29:13):
want to hear. Yes, because it's entirely possible that, Okay,
you spend all this time with this person, you've developed feelings,
maybe you're projecting your own or you think that they've
said something that leads you to believe they like you.
To just tread lightly because it might just be that
you know, you're hoping something that that isn't there, and
maybe you're just refusing to see it. Yeah, and also
(29:34):
too if it is uh, I'd say, if it's a
relatively new friendship, there's plenty of room to to explore, like,
you know, maybe there is something there there. I mean
I've I've I've experienced like chemistry with with guy friends
plenty of times, but it's like for the closest of
(29:54):
them and the ones that I've known for the longest,
that's when the chemistry, like any kind of spark I
would feel I would be like, oh no, what is
going on? Because that's when you don't wanna you don't
want to risk a lot, and you don't want to
risk getting angry at the other person either, Right. Well,
I think it's interesting the friendships that managed to uh
(30:14):
survive this whole rocky transition, the confession of feelings and
all that stuff. Um. This is from Boise State University.
This study. Heidi Reader, who's an associate professor of communication,
did this study. They found that the people who managed
to stay friends, who managed to weather the storm of
confessing feelings for your friend, they honestly wanted to stay friends,
(30:37):
and they actively pursued the friendship, so they kept doing
some of the same things they've been doing. They verbally
affirmed like, we're still friends. It's cool. This weird thing
kind of happened, but you know what, we're going to
weather it together. Yeah, and um, they the person accepted
that the feelings were not mutual and they moved on.
When the friendships dissolved, it was so surprisingly when the
(31:02):
person who would put him or herself out there became
awkward or embarrassed, and they still saw that door as
being opened and we're just waiting and hoping. And it
sounds like I I would bet in those kinds of situations.
Because these were based on on interviews with people about
when they had experienced this kind of a friendship attraction.
(31:25):
I would guess that that might happen more often if
you don't take some time apart because and that can
be hard as well. Like if you if you do
see a person all of the time and you do
have these uh, underlying feelings for them, taking time off
is also feels like forever. The heart can be so complicated, Caroline.
(31:49):
Like basically like if we could have just like taken
a you know, an evolutionary lesson and just said, hey,
you stay on your side, I'll stay on my side,
and we let's never talk. Let's just have awkward middle
school slow dances together. Um. But I would say, like
from all of I was thinking, I've been thinking a
(32:10):
lot about this, this friend zone uh idea and what
to do about it, because a lot of it is
is so wrapped up with all of this kind of
advice ee stuff. I've just said stuff like eight times
in a row. Um, and it's part of our name,
that's true. But if there was one takeaway I could
give people, it would be that if you are in
the friend zone, the best thing to do is except
(32:34):
that you're in the friend zone and then before you
know it, you'll be out of the friend zone. Because
really the friend zone is more state of mind than
anything else, because you know, I've been. I feel like
you and I both been on both sides of this.
And when you're putting someone in the friend zone, like
we talked about, it's not always conscious, it's just like
(32:56):
you kind of don't really think of the person that way.
So I don't know what to say, just yeah, it
is a frame of mind for the person who's been
friend zoned, I guess right. And on the opposite side
of that for the person who's doing the what the
side that you often end up in, Caroline, like what
(33:16):
kind of having to like keep um like delineate between
like where the friendship ends. Um. I would say to
that maybe, UM, if you find yourself keeping actively having
to keep someone in a friend zone for whatever reason,
you need to explore first your own motivations for why
(33:40):
you're keeping them there. Are you using them or are
they aggressively trying to get in that door. I mean
I've had just normal friendships where we're not spending like
every single night hanging out and you know, getting drinks
and going to movies together. But just like average round
of the mill kind of friendships where you're not yeah,
where you're not monop realizing each other's time. So then
(34:02):
what's the situation that's called a friendship? Well, yeah, but
if the other person likes has those feelings though, I mean,
that's what I'm saying, Like I just run of the
mill average friendship, structured relationships where the other person like,
I don't feel like that's being manipulative. No, no no, no, no,
I don't. Yeah, I don't think that's being manipulative at all. Um.
(34:24):
And I mean and and at that at that point,
if that other person feels like they're in the friend zone,
well hey jump off a cliff, do or die? You know.
I think I just think, like, as hard as it is,
a conversation needs to happen because I think me personally, uh,
if a friend or an acquaintance had feelings for me
(34:45):
and didn't know how to deal with it, was feeling
maybe frustrated or angry or rejected, just come out and say, hey,
you know, I think I like you more than just friends.
What do you think about that? You know, something straightforward,
casual to the point point so that maybe there is
that chance that maybe the person is interested, maybe they're
(35:05):
not that they want to stay friends. Maybe it's time
for the two of you to find other friends. Yeah,
and I would say have a conversation. Don't do an
impulsive rom com esque, you know, quick kiss when he
or she is not expecting it. It could end up
being amazing in the best kiss of your life. I
don't think that the statistics are in your favor for
(35:26):
that to happen, says cynical christian Um. But the thing is,
let us all comfort ourselves if we find ourselves dealing
with a friend zone, that this is just what we
were asking for by wanting to be friends in the
first place. Because remember, like the researchers said in the
(35:49):
Journal of Personal and Social Relationships, cross sex friendships are
more complex than both same sex friendships and romantic partnerships.
It's almost more complicated and then dating here that folks.
So I cannot wait to hear some friend zone stories.
And if anyone is stuck currently stuck in a friend
(36:09):
zone and you are pulling your hair out, and you
would like any advice, Caroline, I would I would like
to hear from them. Let's hear it. Yeah, well, I will, um, we'll,
We'll let you know whatever we can do to to
help guide you out of that friend zone. We will
try to be the light. Maybe that'll be our next
Friday video. Yeah, yeah, that'd be That would be awesome.
(36:29):
So send us your friend zone stories. Uh, mom stuff
at discovery dot com is where you can send them,
and you can also hit us up on Facebook as well,
or if it's a very minor friend zone, probably could
tweet us at Mom's Stuff Podcast. And before we get
to some letters, got a quick message from our kindly
(36:50):
sponsor for this episode of Stuff I've Never Told you.
It is audible dot com, your online repository of audio
books that you can download for your listening pleasure. Choose
from hundreds of thousands of titles and listeners of stuff
Mom Never Told you can head over to audible podcast
dot com slash stuff Mom. Yes, audible podcast dot com
(37:14):
slash stuff Mom for a free download and uh, we
thought we'd make a recommendation that some of our listeners
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slash stuff Mom and download for free the Super Girls, Fashion, Feminism, Fantasy,
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(37:36):
So again, if you'd like to check out what Audible
has to offer, why don't you head on over right
now to Audible podcast dot com, slash stuff Mom, and
now back to our letters, and now back to our letters.
I've got one here from Anastasia on our episode on
Craize a Cat Ladies, she writes, I never thought cat
(37:59):
ladies existed. Whill senior year of college, the boy I
was dating lived in a house in the town great
school abandoned, awful town. Let's say it ranked as one
of the five most oppressing cities in America. When he
gave me the grand tour, he told me to never
look out his room window because it faced the cat lady.
I told him that was mean. She probably was just
old and lonely, and he and his roommates shouldn't be mean.
(38:21):
His roommates would loudly joke about the cat lady, and
when they were drunk and would walk by, they would
be very quiet in fear of the cat lady. Indeed,
I saw she did have an enclosure with about fourteen cats.
Turns out she was a widow and it started taking
in strays to fill up her time. I would constantly
scoold my boyfriend's friends to leave the cat lady alone.
On graduation days, when the boys woke up and opened
(38:42):
the door, there was a cake on the porch with
congrats boys, you did great. You guys are all great kids,
and you'll do great in the world. Best wishes always,
cat lady written on it. That's amazing. Been a big
game about to say if she put all that out
a cake incredible. Needless to say, they all felt like
jerks and shipped in for a few dozen roses and
(39:05):
delivered them to her in person. I told them, let
this be a lesson to not make fun of a
cat lady. Maybe if they were nicer to her earlier,
she would have been a pseudo grandmother or mom to them.
Cat lady or a cake lady. Yeah, this is from
violent subject line schizo cats. She says, people actually assume
(39:27):
that I'm a crazy cat lady all of the time.
In truth, I have one incredibly needy cat. So the
comparison to infants made total sense to me and actually
provided me with some relief that she might be normal. However,
I was surprised that you all did not include any
information on Louie Wayne. Louis Wayne is a famous turn
of the century English artists who anthropomorphized cats to the extreme.
(39:48):
He began drawing cat cartoons to entertain his dying wife.
Once she died, he became a crazy catman. Lo and Behold.
He wound up with schizophrenia and was admitted into the
Bethlem Royal Hospital. Regardless, he was an illustrator and comic
artist of incredible talent and should be celebrated as such.
So here's to crazy Catman. Thank you Violet, Yeah, and
(40:10):
thanks to violence letter that this was a little while ago,
but I did posts a number of his crazy cat
pictures or paintings, I should say, on our tumbler, So
yet another reason to follow us on tumbler stuff I've
never told you dot tumbler dot com. And thanks to
everyone who has written into us at mom stuff at
(40:32):
discovery dot com our email address, and again you can
find us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. And
if you'd like to get a little smarter this week,
why don't you head over to our website It's how
stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands
of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com
Welcome to stuff Mom Never Told You from House stepworks
dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
and I'm Caroline, and today we're talking about the friend zone.
Do Do Do Do Do Do do scary place, Caroline.
(00:24):
Have you ever put somebody in the friend zone? Yeah? Not,
I mean not on purpose. It's not like I eyeball
somebody and I'm like, you're going in the friend zone drawer.
Oh wait, before we go any further, though, we should
clarify what the friend zone is. The friend zone is
not as it might sound, like, you know, the zone
(00:45):
of friend where like you see someone and you're like,
we will be friends. Oh yeah, and then you buy
candy together and eat it, share secrets. Uh No. The
friend zone is this pop cultural trope I would call
it that arguably began into or entered into our lexicon.
(01:06):
Uh in nine four with an episode of Friends in
which I think Ross got put into the friend zone
and Joey was all like, hey, ros, she's in the
friend zone and Ross is all like uh, and then
it just like balloon from there, and so yeah, the
friend zone is when it typically relates to straight guys
(01:29):
and girls being friends and either the guy or the
girl developing romantic and or sexual or I should say
sexual and or romantic feelings for the other person and
which goes unrequited. Yeah, exactly, you're just the other person
just thinks you're just friends and they want to keep
it that way. Yeah, you gotta stay in the friend
(01:51):
zone exactly. Well, you know, my dude roommate actually makes
fun of me because I have a lot of dude
friends and occasionally a crush will develop up, uh where
I am the object of the crush and I don't
really notice it, or I don't notice it, or I
am in denial because I don't want to think that
like my buddies, my friends feel that way because I
have inadvertently put them in the friend zone. But there
(02:15):
was one instance where I literally I had no idea,
Like sometimes you know, and you just live in like
a little denial bubble about us. Is a nice kid
to light dinner for two friend these roses? Well know
that actually happened to somebody brought me flowers and I
thought we were just friends up into that point and
then yeah, that's a whole other story. But yeah, this
one time, No, I was friends with this guy had
(02:35):
no idea that he had any feelings for me, as
far as I knew, we were just hanging out having
a good time. Um. He never let on, He never
said anything. He never like stared longingly into my eyes
or anything like that. Uh. And I started going out
with a friend of his, and not only was he
hurt and upset, but he cut me entirely out of
his life. And not only did he do that, he
(02:57):
then proceeded to go to some of our mutual friends
and talk smack about me. Oh that's but I was
gonna say, if it had just stopped with he cut
you out of his life, I was gonna say, hey,
you know what, the friend zone can be tough if
if you're if your little feelings get out of control.
But that kind of negative behavior. Yeah, so I think
(03:17):
he was in an angry friend zone. The friend zone
of anger and anger can come with a friend zone,
which is why it can be such treacherous territory, which
is also why we wanted to talk about it today
because there has been some scholarship on this concept of
the friend zone. UM, I feel like I also, um,
(03:38):
speaking personally, have been I don't I don't know if
I've been put in the friend zone more than I have.
I have friends zoned people. I've done both, you know,
I've kind of it's more like like getting put in
the friend zone is more just kind of getting you
know it puts. It's always been a way of putting
the relationship in check, of saying like, no, this is
(03:59):
this is where this needs to be. They should if
we move forward, it will have terrible consequences. But we'll
get into those kinds of things later on. But the
problem is, like, the reason the friend zone even exists
is because and why perhaps like we have all of
these like problems with it or questions about it of
(04:21):
like avoiding getting into it and how to get out
of it and what do you do? Is because, I mean,
guys and girls haven't been friends for all that long. Yeah, exactly.
This is from a great New York Times piece by
William Derrick Stewitz from April. He said that, you know,
back in the day, men and women existed in different
social spheres and that opposite sex friendships were unthinkable. Yeah,
(04:46):
and then he uh postulates that feminism, first wave feminism
comes around, and that is our first step toward these
cross sex friendships. You have the terms boyfriend, girlfriend appearing
around the eighteen nineties, around the same time that the
term feminism is coined, and then later on, getting into
(05:09):
the twentieth century, you have the early twentieth century the
idea of the new woman. She's intelligent, she's well read,
she's outspoken, her relationships with men are more about seeking
mental partners and companions rather than just being a a
wife to be. And then in the nineteen sixties and
(05:30):
seventies was second wave feminism. The it undergoes this further
step of breaking down those boundaries of saying, hey, you know, really,
like if we want to be equals in the workplace
and equals at home, and equals uh the rank at
the skating rink, yes, then we gotta learn, like for real,
(05:52):
zies this time, how to be friends. Yeah, because with
equality comes working in the same sphere, basically, you know,
working in the same arena. And so these demands for
equal rights during the sixties created the conditions for friendship.
The writer said, uh, you know, it becomes commonplace rather
than strange or titilating to see a member of the
(06:12):
opposite sex at work. So now you just have to
suck it up and deal with it, it becomes not
as weird. Yeah, but there is a big difference between
just seeing and interacting with with people at work and
being friends and being friends. Yes, uh, and there's uh
some a lot of scholars actually suspect that we might
(06:35):
have gotten more than we bargained for in terms of saying, hey,
let's all, let's all be friends. Uh. This is coming
from a study published uh this year in twelve, coming
out of the University of Wisconsin, and it's called Benefit
or Burden Attraction and cross sex Friendships, And it was
published in the Journal of Personal and Social Relationships. And
(06:58):
I'm going to read a little bit of a media
quote from this study because I feel like it sums
up so well what we have done and why the
friend zone is so just fraught with with problems for
for folks. So the authors are right, cross sex friendships
appear to be more complex than both same sex friendships
(07:21):
and romantic partnerships, which have a clear place in hetero
sexist society. Yeah. And I would say again, like, as
an aside, the friend zone is a very heteronormative concept.
I would say, in one of the first papers on
cross sex friendship. There, researcher proposed that cross sex friends
confront four major challenges for determining the type of emotional
bond shared, facing sexuality and the relationship, presenting the relationship
(07:45):
as an authentic friendship to outsiders, and addressing equality in
the context of gender inequality. Not to mention, and this
would make number five potential jealousy directed at said friend
by possible boyfriend's girlfriends spouses. So what a goolash of problems?
(08:07):
That sounds delicious. It's a meati quote and a ghoulash
of problems. I think I'm hungry for a roast beef sandwich. Um. Yeah.
The study looked at eighty eight pairs of undergrad opposite
sex friends. They found some very significant differences in how
men and women experience opposite sex friendship, mostly that your
(08:28):
your male friend wants to sleep with you yeah, and
your female friend, if you're a man, does not one
sleeping well. And again this is all in uh like
a heteronormative context because they're straight cross sex friendships and
the researchers were so determined to get to the truth
of friends true feelings for each other that they not
(08:48):
only separated them but before they would go in one
by one to divulge their feelings or lack of feelings.
They made the friends promise each other probably pinky's where cute,
friendly kind of way, that they wouldn't tell the what
they talked about to the other person. Yeah, men were
(09:08):
much more likely to think that their friend was attracted
to them and more likely to act on this mistakenly
perceived attraction. So like, if the man really like the woman,
he kind of projected those feelings and assumed that the
feelings were mutual and it was just a matter of
time before they would either date or hook up or whatever.
But women are blind to It works for women just
(09:28):
in the opposite direction, because women were generally not attracted
to their male friends and they assumed the lack of
attraction was mutual. Oh man, that's some that's some miscommunication happening.
Miss non communication happening. There was also a follow up
study by these researchers. They've talked to two forty nine
(09:50):
adults and found that both men and women did cite
unrequited romance as a potential negative in cross tex friendships.
So we know that this there's a potential for this
to happen. This isn't some kind of surprise finding that
sometimes a friend can make you think sweet things, but
(10:12):
there was a different gender difference, and that men were
still significantly more likely than women to list the possibility
of romantic attraction as as a benefit. And also the
older the men got, the more likely, like the wider
that gender gap grew so older at which I think
might have to do with how maybe a difference in
(10:33):
how men perceive the role of women in their lives
as they mature an age from short term mating possibly
when you're a young un to longer term companionship. Anyway,
uh so, so how do you let's talk more about
the specifics of the actual zone of the friend the friends.
(10:54):
Lemon Drop that that good old website lemon Drop in
septem broke it down different types of end zone or
as opposed to the zone e. There's the never was friend,
so you start chatting up a girl you're interested in,
but then end up being platonic pals whatever. Then there's
the always was friend. So you've seen this person through
ups and downs, you know, holding her hair back when
(11:15):
she's puking, going shopping, whatever, and then one day you
just realized like, holy goodness, I want to get naked
with this person. Yeah, and that's the stuff that terrible
rom com movies are made up. Yeah, well, they all
lead you to believe that, Like, I don't know, and
this could be part of the argument for why the
friend zone is such, you know crap. But like all
(11:35):
these movies just lead you to believe, like if you
just hold out, it'll work out. And you know what,
based on my experience, it doesn't a lot of the time.
Sometimes it does. I have transitioned friendships into relationships before,
but it can be sticky. And did it include probably
a makeover montage for him or for me? Either one.
(11:56):
I just love a good makeover montage. I do work
on acrosteatic glasses. But according to this Lemon Drop article,
there are different types of friend zones as well, and
I and I do agree with this. There's what the
author calls a safety zone where you didn't want to
come on strong and scare off. And this is obviously
like directed at men. So you never made your objective clear,
(12:19):
so you just kind of tried to stay neutral. Yeah,
And like the longer you go without saying something or
indicating something, the more she just assumes I will, you know,
we're just friends, and then comes the zone of total confusion,
where it's you're essentially just dodging mixed signals left and right,
where one minute you think that she's flirting with you,
and the next she's talking about some other dude and
how it's pecks are like to it's huge. Yeah, Well,
(12:43):
there is an argument about the friend zone being terrible.
I mean, obviously the friend zone is terrible for a
lot of people involved. But I had tried to transition
a friendship into a more serious relationship and it just
it just wasn't gonna work. I mean, it just logistically,
like everything, nothing was gonna work. And so I asked
(13:03):
the guy, like, well, you know, you've been in my
life for a really long time. Can we stay friends?
And he said, Caroline, we can be friends. When that
doesn't feel like I'm coming in second place, Oh yeah,
that's tough. Yeah. And so this whole coming in second
argument was written about in the Chicago Tribune in January
two thousand seven, and the writer Gina b says that
(13:24):
when a guy agrees to be quote unquote just friends,
he's forced to stifle his attraction while regularly seeing and
talking to a woman he's attracted to, and that can
make anybody crazy. And the thing is too like those
kinds of dejected feelings and possible uh, negative reactions can
obviously like affect you, whether you're you know, in whatever
(13:47):
your position you're in. Yeah, I mean it's it's negative
and unfortunate for everybody, because if you like someone and
you pin hopes on them, you you want to hope
that it works out, whether that's just hooking up with them,
you know, or actually turning it into a serious romantic relationship. Well.
And then there's also even though all a lot of
this stuff is really heteronormative and often displayed as like
(14:12):
a cross sex thing, they're they're often portrayals now too
that you see more and more in pop culture of
straight person or gay person pining for straight or gay friend,
you know, such as the Jennifer Anderson and Paul Ruddy
movie The Object of My Affection? Who Wouldn't pine for Paul?
(14:32):
Read though that's true? Uh and where yes, like Jennifer
Anderson's like wishing and hoping that perfect gay Paul Rudd
will one day see her and be like those boobs. Yeah,
well but you know what, not to trivialize anybody's feelings
in those situations. But like, at least if the friend
that you're pining for is of an opposite sexual orientation, yeah,
(14:54):
that's then easy. You have to just accept that. Yeah,
it's just a matter of you working on it and
being like, Okay, I've just got to get a grip
and move on and feel better about this. But if
it's somebody of like you know who, you're the gender
that thy ever, then then it's harder to move on
because you're more likely to feel it's personally you know,
(15:15):
it's about me. I'm being rejected well, and you get
along so well, you are compatible, you assume on these
many levels, and the only missing piece is sex usually
I mean not to be and I'm not saying like
just like doing it, but like all of the chemistry
that goes along with that. But but this whole friend
(15:38):
zone concept is also controversial to feminists. Younger feminists out
there take a take a big stink with the even
like just the existence of the idea of a friend zone. Yeah,
there are a couple of bloggers, Stephanie Willis and Alice DeRosier.
Derosier's over at fem inspired willis. Ever, at least likely,
(16:01):
they argue that the friend zone is this misogynistic u
creation from men that they they don't want to accept
that a woman is not basically a prize at the
end of friendship. Well, and it's also a thing of like, uh,
you know, like, well, it's totally wrong if a guy
thinks that he's like invested something in a woman, you know,
(16:23):
there should not be ownus, should not be on her
to have to, you know, make him her boyfriend. And
this relates back to a two thousand seven post on
Shakespeare Shakespeare Excuse Me by a guy named Jeff Pech
writing about what he calls the nice guy, and that
is capitalized the nice guy. He describes it as. A
(16:45):
nice guy is a guy who tells you and bitter,
in a bitter, resentful tone, that women don't date nice guys,
they only date bad boys. And because he's two nice,
women only view him as a friend. And there's often
a lot of aggression that goes along with this of
you know, and this is again is the capitalized nice
guys saying like women are just horrible because I'm perfect
(17:07):
and I treat women incredible and and they just want
to run off with You know that guy who rides
a motor there's always a leather jacket involved, some palm aide. Well, no,
I Actually the thing is I knew a guy like
that though a couple of years ago. I mean I
knew a guy who fancied himself to be like the
ultimate capitalized nice guy, and yet was so bitter and
(17:32):
angry towards all women that he had gotten consistently put
in this friend zone. Like he he was basically like
railing against all women, saying I deserve something now that
I've put in all this work about being a nice
guy for so many years. Well, I think the difference
is the way that you can easily get trapped, maybe
(17:53):
in that mentality of saying I am whether you're a
nice guy or a nice girl whoever, and I I
don't care. Um, I think you have to watch out
of Uh. Well, you know, I'm great on paper, I
treat people amazing, but I'm always stuck in this like
friend space. You might need to just like re examine
(18:14):
how you go about forming your relationships because there is
a different There are differences in the way that you
initiate friendships and you initiate more than friendships. And yes,
friendship is a wonderful foundation to have for the capital
our relationships in our lives. That's fundamental. But if it's
(18:35):
happening all the time, there might be there might be
something that a piece of the pie that you're not eating,
but I like it. I want pie. It's pie season. Um, yeah,
at last, that fin inspire. Basically, her point was that
she resented the assumption that a man who and who,
a man who claims to be a nice guy in
(18:57):
the friend zone deserves this will In's love, et cetera. Um.
She goes on to say, women don't only exist to
date or have sex with you. Yeah, and uh sefinitely.
Stephanie Willison, you mentioned, who's a blogger at at least
likely wrote a piece about the nice guy and about
how much she takes issue with the concept of the
(19:18):
friend zone. And it was focused around a very specific
anecdote about a nice guy who turned into a not
so nice guy when he asked her out and she
was like no, no. He tried to kiss her, that's
what happened, and she turned him down and then he
became very rude toward her, and the post attracted a
ton of attention in the comments, and a lot of
(19:42):
really negative comments from men who were like, oh, sorry
for being nice, and then you know, yeah, and then
a lot of well, a lot of those comments did
echo what you said earlier about like well, I mean
I was her friend for years and I supported her,
and I listened to her talk about other and and
then she like goes off and keeps dating these jerks
(20:02):
or whatever, and it's it's funny, funny, ha ha, funny, weird, funny, sad. Uh,
the interactions that are happening on the board, I found
it very interesting. The responses, especially from the women coming
out of the woodwork to support Willis. Basically a lot
of them were very kind of sarcastic, supportive comments like
(20:22):
mocking the men who were commenting, saying, you know, appreciate me,
I offered you common decency, now put out, you know,
like really kind of making fun of those men who
were offended by the friend zone piece, right, I mean,
like I will say that, uh, those instances of the
being the friend of the person who's in the friend
(20:43):
zone acting out, that happens. That certainly happens, and this
you know, clearly that had happened to Willis, And I
understand the the expectation that if you invest in someone
and that they should then pay you back in some
way is that's just that's not gonna work out. That's
just a false expectation that you're creating for yourself. Um.
(21:06):
But I do have some sympathy for friend zoned guys
and girls, and I do think that this happens more
two guys. Uh. Just this is purely anecdotal, where maybe
the anger also comes from not so much expecting them
to uh you know, like that their vaginas or prizes
(21:28):
or something like that that they should win after putting
it all this time. But I have seen women friends
zoned men in the way to where they substitute emotionally
as boyfriends. They have everything that they need from this
guy who is obviously pining away. Otherwise he wouldn't probably
be spending so much time and no, should his reward
(21:51):
be therefore she must have sex with him. No, But
I've seen it to almost an abusive extent to where
at some point, you know, the guy wakes up and
it's like, oh wow, I'm just being blood dry emotionally
and I'm not getting anything out emotionally, you know, as
well as sure physically. Yeah. Well also, I mean relationships
(22:13):
like that too, can just get in the way of
finding the person that you're supposed to be with, the
person that actually does want you to love them and
dedicate your time to them. And I mean I say
that as uh, like I saw a girl who has
a lot of guy friends. Um, and like my roommate
that I reference, you know, like we spend a ton
of time together. We're also single, you know, when we're
(22:35):
in relationships and stuff, I guess we spend less time
with each other, but we've just known each other for
so long that there aren't any expectations. I mean, he
really is like my brother. And I'm not just saying that.
I'm really like his sister too. Um yeah. And I mean,
and that's a that's a good point to about the
friend being in the way of you finding anyone else
(22:57):
if you are, you know, looking to get into a relationship,
And sometimes that can be the fault not of that
person in the friend zone, but of the other person
manipulating you into always you know, keeping you at arm's
length and giving you just enough to where you'll stick around.
And sometimes it's subconscious, but sometimes I do think it
is pathological. Um so advice for what happens once you
(23:23):
get in the friend zone, or for avoiding getting in
there in the first place. And this is where we
get into friends and listeners. Friends, it's one of the same,
listen to some friends all of us. Uh, this is
where we get into dicey advice territory. The internet is
exploding with friend zone advice. And yeah, like it is
(23:45):
horrible except for the stuff that you hear on this podcast.
So exactly lucky you for finding this well. Dr Jeremy
Nicholson on Psychology Today in December posted some advice and
and I think it's terrible. Yeah, this, uh, this is wow. Yeah,
(24:06):
it's it kind of reads like the rules for men
or I guess for women too, but it also reads
like here, how here's how you can be a little manipulative. Yeah,
you want to dial down that interest, make yourself scarce,
create some competition by making other friends. Is the worst.
I think that's the worst because read what he says
(24:28):
is when you need to create competition, you need to
make other quote unquote friends. Those quotes are his, so
he's saying, like, just find a bunch of people to
shove in your life. Now, it's specifically of this, he says,
of the sex you're attracted to. So if this is
a dude, find a spare woman around, maybe lots of them.
Call up Romney. See if he's got that binder you
(24:49):
can send down. Yes, get the binder. Call these women up.
Because Nicholson is saying jealousy is good, and if you
don't see jealousy, then maybe they're just not interested in
being more than friends. Yeah, and also, like I guess,
find some time to do all of this stuff, including
asking your friend to do things for you, because apparently
(25:10):
the sign of love is how many favors you get
from a person, and then once they do all of
those things like become jealous and bring you take out
or something like that, you want to reward them. So okay,
let's just take all of that and say that's what
you don't do. Because if I found out that a
friend of mine was plotting to like increase my investment
(25:34):
in that kind of way and make me jealous, that
is not a friend of mine. Now that and I've
i've i've yes, I've seen this happen to other friends
and it's disgusting, like you're not you're not a true friend.
You are acting in a friendly way a lot of
the time, you're maybe like going out for drinks with
this person, hanging out, talking on the phone, doing whatever,
(25:56):
you know, being activity partners, et cetera. But if you're
really just waiting around to get in that person's pants
in the meantime, you're manipulating them, that's that's not friendship. Yeah.
The only bit of advice that I would say pay
attention to, uh is make yourself scarce there. Sometimes when
you have been friend zoned, you do need to make
(26:19):
yourself scarce for both of you. Yeah, you have to
re establish the boundaries because once you cross it, Unfortunately,
you don't even have to you know, they say sex
changes everything. You don't even have to have sex. You
don't even have to kiss or touch to change a
lot of things with a friendship. But we've been talking
a lot to the guys. Let's talk to the women
over at glamour dot com. And this is from January
(26:41):
of M and I and I like a little bit
more of what she has to say. She's like, you know,
ask him out right away. Hey, there you go. Yeah,
don't wait too long, don't make them think that you're
not interested by you know whatever. Just go ahead, get
it out there, and then you can figure out this
is weird though, they're like, and then worry about if
there's chemistry yeah, and like, don't be subtle. But this
(27:04):
is when I was Okay, I'll just tell you what
it is. Don't be goofy or self deprecating. People want
goofy friends, but they don't want to sleep with goofy people.
Save goofy for the postdate. Yeah, and in this case,
if that is true, I will be friend zoned for
the rest of my life. So screwed I am. So
I read this, So I'm reading this for the episode
(27:26):
I'm studying up, I'm reading friends and stuff, and I
immediately turn to my room and I'm like, Jeff, do
men not want goofy women or did just people not
want goofy people? And he was like, I, I'm obviously
not the right person now because we are both very
goofy ridiculous people. I like goofy nous. But I feel
like I see what she's trying to say, like, don't
(27:48):
just be the class clown, Like let the person know
that you're actually serious about them. But are you really
telling me not to be goofy at all? Yeah? I
mean that's just bad advice. How many times do we
have to say that and then going on with the
typical Steve like don't be too available? Established I thought
this was interesting. Established physical familiarity. So whenever possible, like
(28:09):
when when you do make that joke, Caroline, just go
ha and casually tap him on the shoulder, you know,
or stroke his cheek or push his nose. Yeah, just
stroke his thigh and see if that's awkward. Um. And
there's a little bit more basically like what you need
to do. I don't think that we have to run
through all of this questionable advice, like if you if
(28:32):
feelings start to bubble up, you need to take some
time to yourself figure out what's going on, what is
motivating you, What is it about the relationship that you
really like, and maybe you should just take those those
are you know, signposts of what what you really want
in a relationship with someone else. You know, if it's
(28:53):
like a safety factor of familiarity, shared interest, Uh, take
it as away to learn more about what you like
and you don't like. Yeah, I mean self awareness is
definitely key. Because this is from Lemon Drop. They say
to really look and listen for signs of mutual attraction,
but be careful that you're not just hearing what you
(29:13):
want to hear. Yes, because it's entirely possible that, Okay,
you spend all this time with this person, you've developed feelings,
maybe you're projecting your own or you think that they've
said something that leads you to believe they like you.
To just tread lightly because it might just be that
you know, you're hoping something that that isn't there, and
maybe you're just refusing to see it. Yeah, and also
(29:34):
too if it is uh, I'd say, if it's a
relatively new friendship, there's plenty of room to to explore, like,
you know, maybe there is something there there. I mean
I've I've I've experienced like chemistry with with guy friends
plenty of times, but it's like for the closest of
(29:54):
them and the ones that I've known for the longest,
that's when the chemistry, like any kind of spark I
would feel I would be like, oh no, what is
going on? Because that's when you don't wanna you don't
want to risk a lot, and you don't want to
risk getting angry at the other person either, Right. Well,
I think it's interesting the friendships that managed to uh
(30:14):
survive this whole rocky transition, the confession of feelings and
all that stuff. Um. This is from Boise State University.
This study. Heidi Reader, who's an associate professor of communication,
did this study. They found that the people who managed
to stay friends, who managed to weather the storm of
confessing feelings for your friend, they honestly wanted to stay friends,
(30:37):
and they actively pursued the friendship, so they kept doing
some of the same things they've been doing. They verbally
affirmed like, we're still friends. It's cool. This weird thing
kind of happened, but you know what, we're going to
weather it together. Yeah, and um, they the person accepted
that the feelings were not mutual and they moved on.
When the friendships dissolved, it was so surprisingly when the
(31:02):
person who would put him or herself out there became
awkward or embarrassed, and they still saw that door as
being opened and we're just waiting and hoping. And it
sounds like I I would bet in those kinds of situations.
Because these were based on on interviews with people about
when they had experienced this kind of a friendship attraction.
(31:25):
I would guess that that might happen more often if
you don't take some time apart because and that can
be hard as well. Like if you if you do
see a person all of the time and you do
have these uh, underlying feelings for them, taking time off
is also feels like forever. The heart can be so complicated, Caroline.
(31:49):
Like basically like if we could have just like taken
a you know, an evolutionary lesson and just said, hey,
you stay on your side, I'll stay on my side,
and we let's never talk. Let's just have awkward middle
school slow dances together. Um. But I would say, like
from all of I was thinking, I've been thinking a
(32:10):
lot about this, this friend zone uh idea and what
to do about it, because a lot of it is
is so wrapped up with all of this kind of
advice ee stuff. I've just said stuff like eight times
in a row. Um, and it's part of our name,
that's true. But if there was one takeaway I could
give people, it would be that if you are in
the friend zone, the best thing to do is except
(32:34):
that you're in the friend zone and then before you
know it, you'll be out of the friend zone. Because
really the friend zone is more state of mind than
anything else, because you know, I've been. I feel like
you and I both been on both sides of this.
And when you're putting someone in the friend zone, like
we talked about, it's not always conscious, it's just like
(32:56):
you kind of don't really think of the person that way.
So I don't know what to say, just yeah, it
is a frame of mind for the person who's been
friend zoned, I guess right. And on the opposite side
of that for the person who's doing the what the
side that you often end up in, Caroline, like what
(33:16):
kind of having to like keep um like delineate between
like where the friendship ends. Um. I would say to
that maybe, UM, if you find yourself keeping actively having
to keep someone in a friend zone for whatever reason,
you need to explore first your own motivations for why
(33:40):
you're keeping them there. Are you using them or are
they aggressively trying to get in that door. I mean
I've had just normal friendships where we're not spending like
every single night hanging out and you know, getting drinks
and going to movies together. But just like average round
of the mill kind of friendships where you're not yeah,
where you're not monop realizing each other's time. So then
(34:02):
what's the situation that's called a friendship? Well, yeah, but
if the other person likes has those feelings though, I mean,
that's what I'm saying, Like I just run of the
mill average friendship, structured relationships where the other person like,
I don't feel like that's being manipulative. No, no no, no, no,
I don't. Yeah, I don't think that's being manipulative at all. Um.
(34:24):
And I mean and and at that at that point,
if that other person feels like they're in the friend zone,
well hey jump off a cliff, do or die? You know.
I think I just think, like, as hard as it is,
a conversation needs to happen because I think me personally, uh,
if a friend or an acquaintance had feelings for me
(34:45):
and didn't know how to deal with it, was feeling
maybe frustrated or angry or rejected, just come out and say, hey,
you know, I think I like you more than just friends.
What do you think about that? You know, something straightforward,
casual to the point point so that maybe there is
that chance that maybe the person is interested, maybe they're
(35:05):
not that they want to stay friends. Maybe it's time
for the two of you to find other friends. Yeah,
and I would say have a conversation. Don't do an
impulsive rom com esque, you know, quick kiss when he
or she is not expecting it. It could end up
being amazing in the best kiss of your life. I
don't think that the statistics are in your favor for
(35:26):
that to happen, says cynical christian Um. But the thing is,
let us all comfort ourselves if we find ourselves dealing
with a friend zone, that this is just what we
were asking for by wanting to be friends in the
first place. Because remember, like the researchers said in the
(35:49):
Journal of Personal and Social Relationships, cross sex friendships are
more complex than both same sex friendships and romantic partnerships.
It's almost more complicated and then dating here that folks.
So I cannot wait to hear some friend zone stories.
And if anyone is stuck currently stuck in a friend
(36:09):
zone and you are pulling your hair out, and you
would like any advice, Caroline, I would I would like
to hear from them. Let's hear it. Yeah, well, I will, um, we'll,
We'll let you know whatever we can do to to
help guide you out of that friend zone. We will
try to be the light. Maybe that'll be our next
Friday video. Yeah, yeah, that'd be That would be awesome.
(36:29):
So send us your friend zone stories. Uh, mom stuff
at discovery dot com is where you can send them,
and you can also hit us up on Facebook as well,
or if it's a very minor friend zone, probably could
tweet us at Mom's Stuff Podcast. And before we get
to some letters, got a quick message from our kindly
(36:50):
sponsor for this episode of Stuff I've Never Told you.
It is audible dot com, your online repository of audio
books that you can download for your listening pleasure. Choose
from hundreds of thousands of titles and listeners of stuff
Mom Never Told you can head over to audible podcast
dot com slash stuff Mom. Yes, audible podcast dot com
(37:14):
slash stuff Mom for a free download and uh, we
thought we'd make a recommendation that some of our listeners
might like. You can go to audible podcast dot com
slash stuff Mom and download for free the Super Girls, Fashion, Feminism, Fantasy,
and the History of Comic book Heroines. By Mike Madrid.
(37:36):
So again, if you'd like to check out what Audible
has to offer, why don't you head on over right
now to Audible podcast dot com, slash stuff Mom, and
now back to our letters, and now back to our letters.
I've got one here from Anastasia on our episode on
Craize a Cat Ladies, she writes, I never thought cat
(37:59):
ladies existed. Whill senior year of college, the boy I
was dating lived in a house in the town great
school abandoned, awful town. Let's say it ranked as one
of the five most oppressing cities in America. When he
gave me the grand tour, he told me to never
look out his room window because it faced the cat lady.
I told him that was mean. She probably was just
old and lonely, and he and his roommates shouldn't be mean.
(38:21):
His roommates would loudly joke about the cat lady, and
when they were drunk and would walk by, they would
be very quiet in fear of the cat lady. Indeed,
I saw she did have an enclosure with about fourteen cats.
Turns out she was a widow and it started taking
in strays to fill up her time. I would constantly
scoold my boyfriend's friends to leave the cat lady alone.
On graduation days, when the boys woke up and opened
(38:42):
the door, there was a cake on the porch with
congrats boys, you did great. You guys are all great kids,
and you'll do great in the world. Best wishes always,
cat lady written on it. That's amazing. Been a big
game about to say if she put all that out
a cake incredible. Needless to say, they all felt like
jerks and shipped in for a few dozen roses and
(39:05):
delivered them to her in person. I told them, let
this be a lesson to not make fun of a
cat lady. Maybe if they were nicer to her earlier,
she would have been a pseudo grandmother or mom to them.
Cat lady or a cake lady. Yeah, this is from
violent subject line schizo cats. She says, people actually assume
(39:27):
that I'm a crazy cat lady all of the time.
In truth, I have one incredibly needy cat. So the
comparison to infants made total sense to me and actually
provided me with some relief that she might be normal. However,
I was surprised that you all did not include any
information on Louie Wayne. Louis Wayne is a famous turn
of the century English artists who anthropomorphized cats to the extreme.
(39:48):
He began drawing cat cartoons to entertain his dying wife.
Once she died, he became a crazy catman. Lo and Behold.
He wound up with schizophrenia and was admitted into the
Bethlem Royal Hospital. Regardless, he was an illustrator and comic
artist of incredible talent and should be celebrated as such.
So here's to crazy Catman. Thank you Violet, Yeah, and
(40:10):
thanks to violence letter that this was a little while ago,
but I did posts a number of his crazy cat
pictures or paintings, I should say, on our tumbler, So
yet another reason to follow us on tumbler stuff I've
never told you dot tumbler dot com. And thanks to
everyone who has written into us at mom stuff at
(40:32):
discovery dot com our email address, and again you can
find us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. And
if you'd like to get a little smarter this week,
why don't you head over to our website It's how
stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands
of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com
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