Many have uttered the name of this
mythical realm; some swear to even have their mail sent there. Located
somewhere between the Matrix and Oz but adjacent to Never Land is a lonely and
dark desert where its inhabitants roam looking for that single oasis. Much like
Never Land its residents never grow up and live with sore wrists. I am speaking
of course of The Friend Zone. Thousands of men have used the term Friend-zone
and possibly just as many women but with a different context. I decided to
explore this vast wasteland of anger and pent up sexual frustration in hopes of
discovering the truth.
I began my journey like any explorer
would, by hearing about it through myth and legends spoken in low voices in
dark places where the spirits were dismal and flowing, the place that mind
gathered and discussed the bigger things in life, I’m talking of course of
Facebook. It was there that I noticed the writing on the wall, “One does not
simply escape the friend zone.” I found this peculiar because in all of my
travels I had heard of this land many times but never saw it with my own eyes.
I quickly delved deeper into this mystery
and turned to the treasure that it the writings of the prophets amassed into
one tome called Wikipedia which explained, “The friend zone, in popular
culture, refers to a platonic relationship wherein one person wishes to enter
into a romantic or sexual relationship, while the other does not. It is
generally considered to be an undesirable or dreaded situation by the lovelorn
person.” This sounded like some form of curse inflicted on bright eyed and love
stricken warriors who had fallen victim to Aphrodite or the sting of cupids’
arrow. I feared for my safety but knew I
had to continue on, not just for myself but for these poor hopeless souls that had
been lost to this trickery.
I set sail in search of someone who has
seen this land with their own eyes had it been someone who has wandered this
lost plane of existence or even some magical deviant who had sent defenseless
souls there. After a long voyage through The Google Sea I came across a clump
of islands and docked in a small cove and began the trek across the sands and
into the woods towards a column of smoke in the distance. I hacked my way
through the forest while wondering what perils and surprises lay before me and
with one final swing of my machete I found the source of the smoke, a rather
large bon-fire in the middle of a cozy mud-hut village. I approached cautiously
with my blade in hand but was taken by surprise when a gaggle of sheep run up
on me and before I could swing they began to change before my very eyes. I
stood there mesmerized as the sheep began to grow in size and take on familiar forms,
they began to rise up onto two feet and stretch out long nimble arms, these
sheep were no ordinary sheep, they appeared to be people, or possibly some form
of hybrid, some form of…Sheeple.
In front of me stood two women of this
tribal flock and I quickly asked, “What is this place, what are these islands I
have landed upon?” The first woman looked at her friend and then back to me and
explained that she was Krystie Lee Yandoli and her associate was Tracy Clayton
and I had landed my ship on the islands of Buzzfeed, named so for the gossipy
hum and constant consuming of everything possible by the inhabitants. I
explained my quest to these two women and when they offered me some insight.
Krystie quoted the words a world famous wizard known as Daniel Radcliffe to me,
‘“Friend-zoning is a terrible thing. The idea of a friend zone is like a
terrible, male… have you ever heard a girl say she’s in the friend zone? It’s a
thing I think men need to be really careful about using… I definitely think the
idea of friend zone is just men going, ‘This woman won’t have sex with me.’” I
found this odd and twisted, and Tracy’s adage helped little, ‘“I also love it
when this happens because I feel like privileged people are more likely to be
heard in general, so when they speak about privilege there’s a better chance
that the people who need to hear the message will actually hear it and maybe
receive it.”’
Surely
this was lunacy, how could one of the world’s most famous wizards know of the
friend-zone, who in their right mind would reject the powerful and mystical
Daniel, even without his magic he had money and talent enough to make any women
swoon. That is when it occurred to me; maybe no woman had been put in the
friend-zone before, could it be that this plain of existence was only reachable
by being banished there by a witch? I had to know more, I had to discover the
secrets these hags knew!
I
sat down by the fire with them both and began to take in their knowledge and
reading through their notes. They went back and forth telling me stories of the
advances men had made towards them, how these men would present them with
flowers and fermented beverage and then expect entrance into her most holy of
grails. They explained how society had even chastised them for taunting and
tempting these men when they simply enjoyed the company they offered and wanted
nothing more.
In
the distance I could see the gleam of the suns eye just peaking over the
horizon when Tracy stopped me in my tracks by saying, “Rape culture made the
construction of the friend zone possible. Rape culture strips a woman of her
right to consent, and it punishes her when she dares take control of her body,
and the friend zone does the same thing. They’re both built on the premise that
in the face of a man’s will, a woman should never say no.” I was truly stunned;
it was all starting to make sense. These women were no hags or witches; they
were simply defenders doing all they could to keep their castles from being
penetrated. Their provinces had no qualm about creating alliances and opening
their gates to those who wished to assist but once their friends became their
aggressors they had to find a way to banish thee!
I knew what had to be done, I thanked the
women for their information and made haste back to my vessel, the only way to
stop this madness was to lock the gates of The Friend-Zone and make sure no
soul could escape once banished there. I cut my ship free from its restraint
and set sail, uncertain of where I was going but driven with fury. I sailed
across the ocean, seconds turned into minutes, minutes into cups of coffee, and
coffee into business calls, but finally I came to a ship graveyard. I sailed towards shore through the wreckage
and fragments of pas voyages. Masts pointed towards the sky from beneath the abyss
and hulls rotted into piles of driftwood. I could feel it in my bones that I
had arrived.
My ship hit land with a hard thud and I
was thrown forward and into the soupy sand. I stood up and tried to brush it
off of my sleeves and pantaloons but it was sticky and only seamed to spread
into the fabrics the more I rubbed. I glanced around me and could only see the
dark mountain ridge before me, there appeared to be only one way to go, over
it. I began my climb up the mountain stopping every so often to catch my breath
or rest my arms but I finally made it, I had made it to the mountain top and
unlike what others have said, it was not glorious, the view was not beautiful,
no, instead it looked down into a dark desert where black specs seemed to
dredge across it. This was defiantly it; this was The Friend-Zone.
I
camped at the top of the mountain and regained my strength in order to prepare
for what was to come knowing all too well that it would not be pretty. When the
morning came I made my descent and came to the edge of the desert but I was not
alone, I was greeted by many shambling creatures that walked aimlessly while
moaning and groaning. I began to move slowly past them when one noticed me and
with a deep grunt alerted the other creatures. I drew my machete and a smaller
hunting knife from my boot and began to run through the wasteland. One of those
blasted creates grabbed my pack and I quickly spun around and lobbed off its
arm but I wasn’t quick enough, the horde was starting to gain on me. I began to
hack and slash at them all, cutting one’s torso, slicing off the fingers of
another, slowly moving forward, stabbing one in the skull with the hunting
knife, running another through with the machete. These demons kept coming and I
was growing tired when I noticed a stone structure near to the north. I lifted
my boot and kicked one of the plagued down into the sand and tore off towards
the building, kicking up sand behind me.
I crashed into the door and tore it open,
slamming it behind me just barely in time. I could hear the monsters beating on
the outside of it, moaning, groaning, it was pitiful. I took a deep breath and
looked around in the dark before reaching for my lighter. I patted my pockets
but before I could pull it out a lamp ignited in the corner and a man stood
there grinning at me. I stared at him and sized him up; it took all of two
seconds to realize he was no threat. “What are those things,” I asked?
The man chuckled, “They are no different
than you or I they are just unfortunate.” What the hell did he mean by that,
they were very different from him and I, neither of us were groaning sacks
grabbing for anything that moved…shit, it hit me, “Their men aren’t they?” The
man nodded and lit another lamp before sitting down. I sat down across from him
and he told me his tale. He was Michael Kimmel, the Director of the Center for
the Study of Men and Masculinities and he had sought out this land for his
research. I then told him of my journey, how I had heard the myths and met the
Sheeple of Buzzfeed who opened my eyes
to the evil of men and how I had come to lock the gates of The Friend-Zone once
and for all to prevent these sick men from getting free and endangering the women
who sent them here.
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAaaa,” Kimmel laughed.
“What’s so damn funny?” I asked.
“There is no gate to The Friend-Zone that
can be locked, no magic portal that just spits these men out here.”
I scowled; he was obviously trying to stop
me from completing my quest. “What do you mean there is no gate, these men have
to get here somehow!”
“The friend zone is an extension of
constrained gender norms and the need to constantly perform masculinity in
front of other men. If you grow up learning that sex is adversarial — he
chases, she is pursued; he gets, she gives — then how do you deal with what
amounts to relegation to the losers' bracket? The friend zone is thus ‘"face-saving."’
Explained Kimmel
It hit me like a ton of bricks, the final
piece to the puzzle that made the picture clear. The Friend-Zone wasn’t a
magical plane of existence created to be a prison for men, it wasn’t created by
women as a way to punish men or keep them away, it was a state of mind created
by men to protect their frail egos from being shattered like eggs on a rock.
Each and every one of them has put themselves there by being unable to accept
their short comings and instead created a false concept that blames the woman
instead of owning their own issues. These men outside of the hut were walking
around like zombies to the average person but in their own heads they were
seeing visions of grandeur and power. They didn’t need someone to lock the gate
and throw away the key, they need someone to wake them up and show them that it
is ok to be rejected, and that it is perfectly fine to be friends with the
opposite sex without there having to be an expectation of more. They needed
someone to guide them and explain to them how to be their best selves and to truly
love who they are before expecting any woman to want them.
I shook Kimmel’s hand and encouraged him
to continue with his research before stepping back to the door and pulling it
open with one thrust. Bright light shone through the opening and blinded my
eyes as I stepped through the portcullis and into the desert…or so I thought.
References:
Buzzfeed: Why the Friend Zone is Actually Dangerous for
Women.
Written by: Krystie Lee Yandoli, Tracy Clayton, and Julia
Pugachevskt
Salon: Reasons the Friend Zone Needs to Die.
Written by: EJ Dickson
Mic: It’s Not the Friends Zone Guys it’s you.
Written by Elizabeth Plank
WikiHow: Escape the Friend Zone
Wikipedia: Friend Zone
Written by: Who the hell knows.
