Friend zone

Terminology

The term friend zone can be verbified, as in the sentence "So, she's friend-zoned you." It is described as "[a] situation in which a friendship exists between two people, one of whom has an unreciprocated romantic or sexual interest in the other." Although the term is apparently gender-neutral, the friend zone is often used to describe a situation in a male-female relationship in which the male is in the friend zone and the female is the object of his unrequited desire, or vice versa, where the female is being friend-zoned by the male, although less common. The person who does the friend-zoning is referred to as the friend-zoner, whereas the person who gets friend-zoned is called the friend-zonee.

The term friend zone is sometimes used in pickup artist (PUA) literature, where it forms part of PUA theories about female sexual attraction to males.

Research

Binghamton University did a study on undergraduates from a midsize university in the northeastern United States. There were 562 participants with 305 identified as female and 257 as male. Of the 562 participants, 427 were exclusively heterosexual while 113 were not exclusively heterosexual. The participants were asked "Have you ever friend-zoned someone else?" and "Have you ever been friend-zoned?" The study found that 65.7% of exclusively heterosexual males have friend-zoned someone while 92.6% of exclusively heterosexual females have friend-zoned someone. The study also found that 75.2% of exclusively heterosexual males have been friend-zoned before while only 41.2% of exclusively heterosexual females have been friend-zoned before.

Background

Writer Jeremy Nicholson in Psychology Today suggested that a romantic pursuer, in order to avoid being rejected up front, uses a ploy of acting friendly as a "back door" way into a hoped-for relationship. When this method does not work, the pursuer consequently is placed in the friend zone.

According to some psychologists, the man in a cross-gender friendship is more likely to be attracted to his woman friend than she is to him, and he is more likely to overestimate her interest in a romantic or sexual relationship.

Criticism of the term

Feminist writers such as Rivu Dasgupta and Amanda Marcotte have argued that the friend zone concept is misogynistic. Dasgupta sees the friend zone as being rooted in male narcissism. The nice guy concept has been criticized as a gender trope with an underlying message that kind acts demand a sexual or romantic reward. Dasgupta and Marcotte say that the concept implies that if a woman and a man have a platonic friendship and the man becomes romantically attracted to the woman, then the woman has an obligation to return his affection. A woman who does not return her "nice guy" male friend's affection is viewed negatively or seen to be at fault. Ryan Milner of the College of Charleston argued that the friend zone concept is a nuanced and harmful aspect of patriarchal authority and male domination.

The Guardian contributor Ally Fogg argues that while the friend zone does not exist in a literal sense, men who use the term "friend zone" are not necessarily misogynists who feel entitled to sex. He states the term's usage reflects a genuine emotional experience for straight men with low self-esteem and self-confidence. He places blame on ingrained gender roles. Being rejected by a potential partner does not mean a person has been friend-zoned; it means that potential partner does not want to pursue a romantic relationship.

In popular culture

The term was popularized by a 1994 episode of the American sitcom Friends entitled "The One with the Blackout", where the character Ross Geller, who was lovesick for Rachel Green, was described by character Joey Tribbiani as being the "mayor of the friend zone".

The 2005 romantic comedy film Just Friends's main plot device is that the protagonist Chris Brander (played by Ryan Reynolds) is "friend-zoned" by his best friend (and secret love interest since school) Jamie Palamino (played by Amy Smart).

Chris Rock mentions the term in his 1996 "Bring the Pain" skit. He says that women have male friends, but these men are friends with women they "haven't fucked yet". Rock then claims that men who have platonic friends is because of an accident and ending up in the friend zone is because of a "wrong turn somewhere".

MTV aired a reality show entitled FriendZone from 2011 to 2013. Each episode is based around "crushers" who are friends with the "crushees" but want to begin relationships with them.

The Cartoon Network series Regular Show brings up and shows the friend zone on a regular basis, as one of the show's main characters, Mordecai, and his friend Margaret experience shifts in their relationship.

American disc jockey and record producer Marshmello's 2018 hit "Friends" featuring British singer Anne-Marie, features themes of feeling friend-zoned, with Marie having gone on to self-proclaim it the "friend-zone anthem" in remarks made on Genius, with its Hannah Lux Davis-directed music video echoing the song's sentiments, with Marshmello attempting to win Anne-Marie's love, but, in turn, Anne-Marie just wants to be friends with him.

In the 2025 American animated heist comedy film The Bad Guys 2 produced by DreamWorks Animation, the sequel to 2022's The Bad Guys, both loosely based on the book series of the same name by Australian children's author and former actor Aaron Blabey about a gang of anthropomorphic animals known as the title "Bad Guys" attempting to perform good deeds to change society's perception of them as criminals, Mr. Wolf, leader of the titular "Bad Guys" (voiced by Sam Rockwell), in one scene, mentions feeling friend-zoned by the in-universe state governor and his friend and former critic Diane Foxington (voiced by Zazie Beetz), his implied love interest in the first film, although in a later scene of the aforementioned sequel, the two share their first kiss (and become a couple overall).

References

References

1. "Oxford English Dictionary".
2. Buchler, Chelsea (5 January 2014). "The "Friendzone": Renegotiating Gender Performance and Boundaries in Relationship Discourse". ''University of Colorado Boulder''.
3. Hosie, Rachel. (16 December 2016). "The sinister logic behind 'Nice Guy Syndrome', explained by psychologists". [[The Independent]].
4. Kelly, Sarah-Louise. (March 7, 2024). "People Are Just Realising Where The Term 'Friend Zone' Came From And We're Stunned".
5. (February 2018). "The Friend Zone: Less Innocuous than it Seems? - The Jambar".
6. Shields, Giorgia (12 January 2017). "A place where every decent guy will find himself eventually": delineating the friend zone as a site of sexual violence". ''The University of Texas at Austin''.
7. (12 October 2013). "6 reasons the "friend zone" needs to die". Salon.
8. Gil, Natalie. "Women Get Friend-Zoned Too – And Men Still Sleep With Them Anyway".
9. (2017-04-21). "The Friend zone: An In/inite Place Where Nothing Good Happens: A Comprehensive Study of Friend zoning Across Varying Genders and Sexual Orientations". Research Days Posters 2016-2019.
10. Nicholson, Jeremy. (1 March 2013). "Avoiding the Friend Zone: Becoming a Boyfriend or a Girlfriend". [[Psychology Today]].
11. (August 2012). "Benefit or burden? Attraction in cross-sex friendship". [[Journal of Social and Personal Relationships]].
12. Marcotte, Amanda. (27 May 2014). "The dangerous discourse of "the friend zone"".
13. Moore, Tracy. (2 November 2014). "Hey Dude, You're Not Stuck in the Friendzone Cuz You Dress Shitty (blog)". [[Univision Communications]].
14. Dickson, E.J.. (12 October 2013). "6 reasons the "friend zone" needs to die".
15. (13 February 2014). "The Friend Zone is Sexist".
16. (2013). "FCJ-156 Hacking the Social: Internet Memes, Identity Antagonism, and the Logic of Lulz". The Fiberculture Journal.
17. Fogg, Ally. (8 January 2013). "Not all men in the 'friend zone' are bad guys". [[The Guardian]].
18. Williamson, Carlos D.. (Jan 30, 2018). "In the friend zone? Here's what you need to know". Chicago Tribune.
19. "Friends: The One With the Blackout Recap". [[TV.com]].
20. Michael, Cherish Krista. "Perceptions of Healthy and Respectful Relationships and Friend Zone Phenomena." PhD diss., Arizona State University, 2015.