Jack Clayton
Lantern Staff
As the famous Tommy Wiseau said in his infamous movie, The Room, “love is blind.” Well if that’s the case, then love is not only blind, but also tone deaf, tasteless, and unfeeling. That may sound harsh, but when you’re in the friend zone, that is nothing but the truth.
It doesn’t matter what your teachers or parents may have told you growing up. If you are a guy, then the worst f-word you can ever hear come from a girl’s mouth is “friend,” especially if you really like that girl.
Now while it is true that girls are just as likely to be put in the friend zone, guys just so happen to have more experience with the problem. And it all seems to stem from one situation; That situation of course is being the “nice guy.”
Growing up, guys have two different ideas of how to impress girls. (1) Be as mean as you can and make fun of them, and (2) be as sweet as you can to a girl and really make her feel important. Well, when you are 12 years old, both seem like somewhat good ideas to try. The only issue is one of those methods will only get you so far before you can possibly get in trouble for what is being done. I’ll let you take a wild guess as to which one that is.
As for the method of being sweet, while that tends to be more of what girls claim to look for, it doesn’t mean that it has a 100 percent chance of success. In fact, this tends to be the method of which sends a poor, unfortunate soul to the friend zone.
Now I’m not saying that guys should not be kind to girls. In fact, that is the opposite of what is trying to be said. The point is the nicer a guy tends to be to a girl, the higher the chance she will send him to the dreaded friend zone. I actually have personal experience with this matter.
In high school, I had one of the biggest crushes ever on one of my closest friends. It got to the point where I was in love with her. I would have taken a bullet for her. That may be going a bit too far, but you get the point.
I was always there for her whenever she needed a shoulder to cry on, or whenever times were tough. But slowly I began to realize that no matter how hard I tried, no matter how nice I could have been, the feelings would never be mutual, which led to the friendship souring out a bit.
This tends to be the effect of a guy being put in the friend zone. They try so hard for the girl to feel the same as him, but when it doesn’t work out, it basically ruins the friendship and any possible future relationship. And this is neither the guy, nor the girl’s fault. The blame can be put simply on a lack of communication.
So does this mean that all guys need to be douches and straight-up pricks to get the girl? Absolutely not. Plenty of nice guys end up finding someone that makes them happy, whether or not it is that dream girl. In fact, there are myths and legends of guys actually escaping the friend zone to end up with the girl of their dreams.
The major factor is communication. Without communication, the relationship can go nowhere. So guys, by all means, if there is a girl out there that you feel is truly special, communicate with her. The more you do that, the more special the relationship will eventually become.
