Nice & In The Friendzone – Debunking The Biggest Dating Hump In History

Anonymous


I know that this article is going to receive a ridiculous amount of hate, but I am a firm believer in that if we don’t put a voice to the issues of society, things will never change. With that said, this isn’t me telling every nice guy or gal out there to stop bitching and screw off, rather I am trying to offer a chance of self-reflection with a heaping side of “things just aren’t quite so black and white.” Hold on until the end, and you may be pleasantly surprised.


We’ve all seen the plethora of articles and posts regarding (mostly) women as selfish, ungrateful villains who have long been leading on the do-gooder nice guy, who wanted nothing more than to “treat her right” only to be put into the proverbial friendzone. After all, he was always there: he helped her when she was down, he gave her advice whenever she needed it; he listened to her, remembered what she said – he was practically her best friend. Whenever her boyfriend was acting like a jerk, whose shoulder did she cry on? Why, oh why, would she have the nerve to put him into the friendzone? It’s almost impossible to not see her as a bitch when it’s put into that perspective, am I right?


But the thing is, is that it isn’t right. It’s wrong.


Let me break down the typical nice guy scenario: typically the nice guy is the well-meaning chap who wants nothing more than to score with a girl who he thinks is the bee’s knees. Fair enough, right? Sometimes there’s a “jerk boyfriend” and sometimes there’s not. Regardless, he approaches the situation simply: he’ll be everything she needs, earn her trust and over time, she’ll eventually see that HE is truly everything that she NEEDS and that her other preferences are simply ridiculous by comparison.


Nice & In The Friendzone – Debunking The Biggest Dating Hump In History


See how the slope gets slipperier, and slipperier, and slipperier?


The issue that the nice guy has is that he is creating his own problems, and that goes along with the concept of the friendzone. Let me spell it out for you so we can get this out of the way: the friendzone doesn’t exist. The friendzone is just a clever idea that implies that courtship is an analytical sequence of right or wrong actions that can end you up an inescapable prison where you’ll never be seen as more than a friend. I hate to say this, but it is what it is: she’s either into you, or she’s not. If you approach a girl as a friend and act like a friend, guess what? You’re a friend. She sees you as a friend, will treat you as a friend, and will never see you as a potential partner if and until you try to change the terms of the relationship between you, which is where the nice guy falls short. He spends all of his time trying to do all of these nice things so that the girl of his dreams will just go-go-gadget epiphany and fall into his arms without him having to do any heavy lifting. If it were simply that easy, the nice guys wouldn’t have much to complain about, now would they?


It rarely plays out that way – trust me, the amount of nice guy rants I’ve seen are proof enough that this tactic is faulty at best. What really happens is that the nice guy essentially approaches this love interest as a kind-hearted friend, either because she is currently taken or because he isn’t gusty enough to ask her out. As a result, she becomes comfortable with him being a friend whom she can trust and get close to without any sexual obligation (e.g. attraction, tension, etc). This results in her removing the notion that he could even POTENTIALLY be a partner in the future, because, let’s face it: dating your friends is pretty fucking weird a lot of the time.


It gets even more complicated when there is a “jerk boyfriend” involved, because it leaves the nice guy a lot less becoming than I am sure he would like to actually seem. In short, the nice guy is taking on the role of: sneaky little dude who wants to dig in on another guy’s chick by being her friend and getting involved in their shortcomings to further pull her away from him. Kind of a slimy thing to do … don’t you think? Another important thing that the nice guy misses is that girls can over exaggerate the issues of their relationship in the heat of the moment, and can often fail to mention all of the amazing things her boyfriend could be doing for her that he simply isn’t aware of. In the event that her boyfriend is clearly a prick, she is still the one choosing to be with him, and if the nice guy was a true friend, he wouldn’t be using it as a clever way to further inch her into his gravitational pull so he can finally have her to himself. The nice guy isn’t truly as nice as he thinks he is.


Nice & In The Friendzone – Debunking The Biggest Dating Hump In History



I hate to say it to the nice guy, but you’re not half as nice as you think you are, especially if you’re the nice guy that blames the girl for not seeing you as more than a friend and then proceed to disappear from her life. Why? Because you essentially lied to this girl through the entirety of your “friendship.” First of all, you were never her friend: you saw her as more than a friend, or began to see her as more than a friend, and rather than making that known, you began using the leverage that you had as her friend (aka all of the nice things you do for her) as a transactional contract that she was never made aware of to try and get her to go out with you. Basically, you attached a price tag to everything you ever did for her. That isn’t exactly what I would call a nice guy.


All of those above and beyond kind things you did for her are great, but here’s the thing: that’s what a good FRIEND does. If you’re any kind of friend you should be there for the people you care about, and you certainly shouldn’t try to use it against someone the second that they don’t give into your desires, especially if they make that person uncomfortable. You’re telling her to forget all of her own personal preferences – since, they don’t matter, she should want YOU – and suddenly switch gears and just magically fall in love with you. Do you get how that might be a teeny, tiny bit much to ask?


Now before I lose all of the guys, let me say this: I know that there ARE girls who string along genuinely nice guys for the sake of benefits and attention. But in 90% of the nice guy posts I have read (and in my personal experience along with a few interviewees) simply don’t fall into the category of: she was just an evil bitch the entire time.


To conclude, there is hope. There’s a cure for the nice guy dilemma: be honest and change your direction. If you want this girl you have to make that known, and you have to work towards changing the terms of your relationship in a way that is upfront without any secret gimmicks or price tags. Sometimes, it’s as easy as saying: “I have feelings for you, and I want us to be more.” If you lose the friendship over that, then it wasn’t much of a friendship anyways. You have to move on and accept that you won’t always get what you want.


Good luck everybody.

Nice & In The Friendzone – Debunking The Biggest Dating Hump In History
45 Opinion