Are friendzone tactics an evolutionary behavior that influences women?

[Anonymous]

I’m trying to dig deeper into the psychology of why many women feel so confident about this.

Also this isn’t a diatribe against women.
But my theory is for most history women depended on men to survive. They needed someone to protect and provide for them and the baby. So what greater asset would there be a man who platonically supports her? In history there are some cultures where several suitors “court”’ a woman for her hand in marriage. During that process the woman gets to enjoy attention and gifts from several men. It might of been the most exciting time in her life.

Just from my experience and observations many women don’t mind getting one sided favors from an interested men despite not being interested themselves. They feel less guilty about it and don’t feel bad about playing dumb.

This is not to say all women are like this. Not at all. But just a large percentage of them. Is this hard wired into their brains?

Updates

+1 y

Over the last century men have been conditioned to treat women (for the better or worse) much better and as “equals”. The whole metoo movement that went down a few years ago has only further reinforced this. Men HAVE changed for women in western society. Yes we have impulses to be domineering over women and sexually aggressive (even violent). But the vast majority is know we will face dire consequences if we do this.

But I do not see wom

Updates

+1 y

Men have listened to women. And I am not just talking about listening to women we care about. In general we have changed our behavior to all women.

But women don’t want to change for men (unless there is a direct benefit in doing so e. g. she already likes the guy). Most of them act dismissive or worse when guys bring up how insulting the friéndzone is. They conveniently dismiss it as sexual entitlement when in reality is a RESPECT issue. Men want to be respected to hear the truth.

[089Lexi]

I used to do this when I was younger. Now I just turn the guy down right there instead of leading him on. I especially don't stay friends thats like giving a wild animal food lol they'll come back. As a woman, you are raised to always be nice and submission even if you are uncomfortable. Some women feel really bad about turning the guy down so they act cool/dumb about their advances hoping they'll eventually stop. Of course everyone likes an ego stroke. Then you have women that'll rip your heart out. Of course there are rude women out there and there are also assertive women who'll speak their mind. But just because you have a guy that likes you, the girl friend zones him and he feels his behavior should be rewarded just because he's being a fake friend. Like yeah no. That's fucked up. But a guy who does pursue the girl and she drops the friend card. "I only see you as a friend. We can be friends." That usually means I don't want to be your friend in most cases. Like a fake nice thing. And for the women that mean it, they just want a normal friend. If you dont like it don't stick around.

[Asker]

Thank for speaking up where you stand with a guy. For mature men the friendzone is infuriating not because of the lost romantic opportunity. Rather it’s a RESPECT issue. A grown woman needs to respect where the guy is coming from. He did stick his neck out trying to approach and date you. Most men don’t enjoy approaching women and going through all the hoops. We do it because we HAVE to. If we Don’t chances are most of us are going to die alone.

I admit young and immature/inexperienced men might not be able to take rejection in strife. I very regrettably acted this way to one girl in college. But she liked my f*cking attention so much she never had the respect to be honest with me. I did get pissy later but this after almost a year of pursuing her. I’ll never made that mistake again.

However I am shocked and very frustrated that there are grown ass women in their 30s who STILL think they can get away with this crap. It’s really depressingly that I still have to keep my guard up at all times.

[Asker]

Just explain respect part. A mature man might be disappointed for getting politely yet directly turned down. But he won’t get angry at the woman. He might initially feel some self frustration and anger but once he processes that he will be thankfully that she respected him enough to be honest.

So next time you turn down a guy make sure to say something along the lines of “I think I owe the truth because i respect you”. Not enough men feel respected in modern times when it comes to dating. It’s a very big deal for us.

[089Lexi]

I'm sorry that you don't receive respect. I'll say that next time, though, it's not like I want to be rejecting guys every chance I get. But if I have to end things I'll use those exact words

[Asker]

@089lexi thanks. Also thanks for being open minded to the male POV. Like I said earlier I don’t “hate” all women. But too many of them at best don’t understand what this does to a man’s self esteem. Others just want to embrace an unchecked societal privilege they have. However there are decent women out there who want to do best. If you let a man know you respect him despite not being interested it will hell much more in the long run. Best of luck out there.

[DaveJord]

So I get where you are coming from on this. I serious never knew how many guys and girls feel so passionately about this friend zone thing. I mean I though every guy knows by the time they graduate highschool that once a girl says that she is only interested in being friends that they need to break contact and move on. But so many guys seem to think the opposite. They apparently the fact that chances of them ever getting sexy from this women is reduced by 95% percent they still want to participate in the some type of relationship with this women. But its a common fact that once you sign on to the friendship deal without sex you are basically giving every thing you have to offer women away for free.

So my counter theory is this, some guys would rather have a friendship with a women than not a relationship with her at all women. Usually these guys that are okay with friend zone thing are so out of their league with the women they desire as a friend that its probably the closest they would ever come to being associated with a attractive women. That's the bottom line, because either they believe over time she will come to want him, or that she will change her mind some how about him. But I can not truly believe that men want a true relationship with a women he finds sexually attractive and not have sex with her if he could out of friendship.

Now if I was women and I told a guy I just wanted to be friends and he kept hanging around I would be his friend. I would not accept any gives from him... but that's just me. Its not the women's fault that this guys left his balls in the 5th grade.

[Asker]

I was once one of those young fools who thought I could get out of the friendzone. But by age 24 I accepted truth on that. While women do tend to change their minds of often on many things they almost never change their mind once they decide to friéndzone. It’s game over.

When it comes to being “friends” with women the acid test is whether or not I feel jealousy if I know they are dating a different guy. If I do feel jealous I’m gone.

However back to evolution. The truth is there is very little benefit most women can provide to men as platonic friends. Rather they usually get tons of advantages. I do think some of them realize this and think twice before pulling this bs on a guy. But an unacceptably large percentage of them feel little to no guilt about it.

[DaveJord]

I agree

[Honesttguy]

You have women who for their own safety will say polite "no" in a way "lets be friends" or "i have boyfriend" yea cus if men gets angry he can kill her or rape her, so yea evolutionary for survival purposes she's gonna do that.

Then u can have women who play men for profitable reasons they might use line "friends" but rather they would prefer lines like " i dont know anything can happen" but really nothing will ever happen. They leave it more open ended.

So comparing both, more often "just friends" is friendly no cus u already spent too much time together and now she feels too sorry for ur ass.

[Asker]

I Can under the first point you made. Especially if the guy is being aggressive. But the second point you made is a huge issue that too many women feel confident about doing.

It’s seems to be always on the guy to watch out for this crap. It’s always “on him” if he gets suckered and taken advantage of. But society in general needs to start judging women much more harshly for that bullshit. Women get way too much leeway in those scenarios.

[Honesttguy]

They get away cus so many of those same guys that want to fuk them protect them. They think they will get some if they protect her ass. I would throw them in jail for fuking with guys like that, consider it crime.

[Honesttguy]

U see its kinda messed up those simp guys would come and beat other guy up for trying to stand his ground agains bs of women, and as a male u reach point where u start to think maybe those fukers deserve to be used and abused by women. It happens a lot.

[Asker]

@honesttguy I’ve had to deal with a white knight POS at my old job (where most of my co-workers were female). I hate those cocksuckers. They have literally sold their souls just to please women.

[Aerissa_Jade]

I say it is friends, seriously and what I call real world social networking. Say I friendzone a guy, I truly want to be friends with him, nothing more. I can meet other people through him and have, meet other people, some of them I may actually date or friendzone as well. Before long I know a lot of people, great way to meet people and I've met a lot of good men this way, as those that know me will introduce me to others. Lots of blind dates, being setup.

It works both ways too, might have a friendzoned guy that I have a female friend with that I think they would be a good match and I set them up.

Real world social networking. I make it clear though, not leading on. Friends only and that is that.

[Asker]

If you speak up early and honestly and he accepts than it’s on him. Also do NOT accept more than one paid date for him.

But in my experience most women don’t speak up early about this or even speak up at all. They conveniently play dumb to string guys along. I don’t think women realize how extremely insulting that is.

[Aerissa_Jade]

I tend to pay for myself on dates, if things get serious then he can start paying for me... but as long as I'm paying for myself, that means I'm still not sure yet. Otherwise I'll have a talk and say, hey I like you as a friend but I don't see us going anywhere beyond that.

[Asker]

Well I give you kudos for being honest. That’s not what I’ve experienced in most of these scenarios. It’s not until I put them on the spot do I get the ugly truth.

Anyway not to be picky but you do realize that no straight man is going to approach a woman, ask for her number and set up a date to be “just friends”. So when a women asks him “can we just be friends” that too stings a bit. He didn’t have a choice in feeling attracted to you. You didn’t have a choice in not feeling attracted to him.

Here is what you should say next time when you reject a guy “he so and so. I thought hard about this and just want to you to know I respect you. That’s why I owe it to you to be honest. They truth is I am just not interested. I know that’s probably not what you wanted to hear but again out of respect i think you should know that. I would like to be friends but I’ll understand if you want to move on.”

That shows that you put some effort into understanding his side of things. Also if a guy gets angry or pissy at you after you politely turned him down than just take that as confirmation you made the right decision.

[Anonymous]

It’s evolutionary.
You want to narrow genetic availability to the best genes, but you want to maximize availability to receiving resources. So having a lot of guy friends puts women in the position of benefiting from men while not being sexually available to them.


This puts the common complaint by women that guys aren’t interested in friendship with them into context. From a guys perspective it makes perfect sense not to expend effort investing in a platonic relationship when they single and want a partner. Yet women are seemingly indignant at this prospect that men prioritize a relationship. Having a bunch of men around is useful for taking advantage of their labor and resources. And essentially men’s own instincts about prioritizing relationships while single and disregarding friendships is their evolutionary counter to women’s drive.

[bamesjond0069]

When you work in behavioral marketing for years you realize people always do what they THINK is in THEIR best interest at the TIME. So yes they do this because they recognize the benefits. Statistically speaking only as a group, older men are the only ones who realize that short term planning does not work well.

[Gwenhwyfar]

Friendzoning is not a bad thing. If I know a male friend is interested in me and I don’t return his feelings I always let him know I’m not interested. If he chooses to stay friends with me that’s on him.

[Asker]

Just as long as you are straight up (early) about where you stand that’s fine. And when I say “straight up” I don’t mean giving passive signals that you are not interested. No I mean straight up verbally saying “hey so so just to let you know I don’t look at you that way”.

However it’s easy for you to say “the friéndzone isn’t a bad thing” when it completely benefits you. Sure he’s a fool to go along with it. But really you are most likely getting more benefits out of this than he is.

[Gwenhwyfar]

It’s a free country. If he wants to be my friend and not bug me about why can’t we date all the time I’m not gonna say no.

[Asker]

Again if you were straight up honest with him (were you?) and he accepts this it’s on him.

The acid test for me is if I feel jealousy if see her with other guys she’s actually likes or worse tries asks for advice about them. That burns than I think you realize.

So he’s going to feel that jealousy/pain when that comes up. Sure you can put him through that because you told him where you stand. But should you? I mean are you being a true friend when you know it makes him feel that way? That doesn’t mean you should date him of course but you do have a role in this.

[Gwenhwyfar]

I disagree but okay. And I wouldn’t ask him for advice about other guys.

[Asker]

@gwenhwyfar I am starting to get a real bad feeling about what your true motives are with this. When you said “oh it’s a free country” that tells me a part of you knows this isn’t fair. But the benefits of this “friendship” are just too enticing to turn down.

Just remember this will not work out in the long run. You and him will never be lifetime friends. In fact you aren’t true friends right now. He’s going to at some point hit a breaking point and move on. He will look back on this and hate you but what’s worse he will hate himself for being too weak to walk away.

I just wish you could take the higher road and be more forthcoming with him. Let him know that it’s not a good idea to have this “friends” association. Friendly is one thing but not friends. I know you won’t do that but if you did it would really be what’s best for him.

[dolemite89]

you’re giving women too much credit in this. They use male friends for attention and as a reminder to the guy they’re actually having sex with like hey look at all these guys that will give me free attention if things don’t work out with you. Men put themselves in the friendzone plain and simple. if she’s not attracted to you, being nice and trying to “friendship” ur way into her pants will only turn her off way more. If she’s not into you stop talking to her and paying her any attention.

[genericname85]

if you're in the friendzone, she doesn't believe that you can be the "supposter". easy as that. there's no way to convince her. keep your dignity and stop being her friend.

[Asker]

I haven’t accepted the “friéndzone” in over 10 years. I developed radar for that a while ago. But I get angry when women try to pull this shit. Especially grown ass women in their 30s.

I am trying to reason that there evolutionary reasons for why women feel so confident about this crap.

[genericname85]

what exactly do you mean "you didn't accept the friendzone"? xD

[Shy_Steve]

What a lot of Girls don't realise is putting a Guy in the friendzone is an unattractive trait not just to him but to other people who see it aswell.

[Evan64]

Maybe not hard wired at birth, but through centuries of socialization... you could definitely consider it a *very* strong norm. One that we are not going to move past because of just how deeply rooted it is.

[Anonymous]

Female chimps (the closest species to female humans) use undesirable males / beta males for food and resources. All premeditated. They also befriend males and then solicit those male friends to attack other chimps for them. Male chimps do the same, but they go into "battle" with their friend.
Yes, females are hardwired to both exploit you and to value their life more than yours.

[Opinion Owner]

Oh yeah and the reason women's periods are so secretive (they can be hard to tell when they happen) is so they can trick beta males into believing they're alpha. If it were obvious when the female was fertile (which is only about 4 days a month...) then he would easily understand what the sex was all about. Alpha male chimps give the females food and backrubs too, but they get the sex when it matters.

[Anonymous]

Since the invention of the vibrator... you are not needed anymore.

[dustybiker]

This is true.

[tom_the_dating_snob]

Sad but true