A couple months ago, I reblogged an comic from Imgur on
The Friend Zoner vs The Nice Guy. I highly recommend you check it out. It's cute, it's funny, and it's pretty accurate. In fact, I agree with it....in its implied context.
You see, men should not be nice to a woman (and please feel free to switch these genders around. "women should not be nice to a man"..."women should not be nice to a woman"..."men should not be nice to a man"...etc.) just because they want to have sex or think that they deserve sex for being a nice guy and treating these women like human beings. And if you stop being nice to me because I won't "give it up" to you or take our relationship to the next level or anything, then I will almost certainly think you are an asshole. Thank you. Bye. Don't ever come back.
But there
is such a thing as the friend-zone. The friend zone is NOT when you want something and don't get it and then you feel sad and rejected and then the entire dynamic of the relationship changes. But the friend zone IS when you are so afraid of ruining a friendship that you don't act on any romantic feelings or when conversations have taken place where it has been made clear that there are no reciprocation of those feelings from his behalf. The latter option is almost always followed by an extreme effort on both of your parts to keep up the appearances of normalcy and maintain the friendship even though you both feel extremely awkward. This can last up to 6 months, but you will eventually develop another crush and then you can go back to being regular bffs who gossip about each other's relationships and talk about futures and the relative sketchy-ness ratings of local fast food restaurants.
But as bad as the friend zone is, at least you are still friends. There are far worse zones, such as...
The Bad: The Sister Zone (better known for men as The Brother Zone). He tells you everything. You might even fall asleep together. But it's never gonna happen.
The Worse: The Family Zone. He tells you things. Sometimes you feel like you're not being told everything. Sometimes you wonder if he even likes you. But he'll always invite you to things and you are totally on good terms with his mom, his dad, his dog, and probably his cousins. It's still never gonna happen.
The Worst: The Colleague Zone. Given the title of this post, this rant calls for another paragraph. But it's still never gonna happen.
Oh, the Colleague Zone. Something with which I am all too familiar. I am very involved in clubs and organizations and all of the extracurricular college things that could be real world jobs but aren't because they want you to at least say that you're focusing on school. And I meet a lot of people that way. And some of these people happen to be men. And some of these men happen to be attractive. I think you get where I'm going.
Ordinarily, this would be great! I can show how involved, dedicated, compassionate, loyal, competitive, adventurous, and intelligent I am. These are some of my best qualities and, with no extra effort on my part, I can show them off to the people I'm interested in simply by doing my job. And then, the dream goes, one of these men would be enamored with my strength and activism for service and social justice and they'd think "Hey, she's a cool girl. Maybe I should get to know her better." These colleagues would be come friends and these friends might morph into something....else. So goes the dream.
The problem lies in the fact that I can't even breach the boundary between colleague and friend. I am stuck forever in conversations revolving around future plans for the club, homework for the class, and the next service project. I mean, how do you progress a relationship when, every time you suggest something non-work related, you get shot down with a "Yeah. And we could tie this into this program and invite the rest of the group and fulfill this requirement and market ourselves in that way"?
And I wish I could say that this was a one-time occurrence. That this was a fluke. That he was the one who was just unresponsive and oblivious or uninterested and so tried to let me down in the nicest way possible that turned into the longest way possible.
But no.
Of course not.
I am the one who is socially awkward and incapable of making friends outside of structured organizations with clearly defined hierarchies and duties and positions.
I am the one who can't navigate the political niceties of social gatherings.
I am the one who makes awkward silences awkward. If I feel that there hasn't been enough awkwardness in the actual conversation, then I will make the conversations awkward.
In short: I am awkward.
In the Colleague Zone, you're not even friends. You're definitely not even that one weird family member that everyone loves but no one is really sure how to respond to. You are simply the good acquaintance who constantly emails/texts/meets up with this other person about work/organization/school related issues. My advice? Get out. Fast. Read a self help book. Ask your socially graceful friends for tips. Ask the readers of your blog for tips. Readers of my blog: Do you have any tips?
No.
Seriously.
I will accept and try anything at this point (and even blog about it if you'd like).
This has to stop.
Maybe now you see my problem.
OK.
I'll stop now.
...
Bye.
This is a much bigger problem than I originally thought.
