FWB is the friendzone for women

It just occurred to me (and I’m sure I’m not the first one to make this observation) that “friends with benefits” to women is what the friendzone is to men.

In the friendzone women get most of what they desire from men, such as companionship, dedication, and validation without giving up their romantic affection or intimacy. Men in the friendzone get nothing but frustration.

The flipside is in friends with benefits, guys get most of what they want, such as companionship and sexual intimacy, without giving up commitment. Sure, women get sexual pleasure too but women aren’t men, no matter how much popular culture tells they can be go out and be slutty with no guilt, it’s not what they really want. They want a man committed to them. A FWB situation will ultimately lead to frustration for women.

Now, I submit that being a FWB is unfulfilling for men too, but it’s not nearly as much as it is for women.

I’ve been in FWB relationships before when I was much younger and more callous. It’s a dead end and totally a waste of time and energy. Every single time it ended with the woman trying to get a bigger commitment out of me, and her being devastated when I said no.

The frienzone and FWBs are both cruel and damaging for all parties involved. It’s just that the friendzone hurts men more and FWBs hurts women more. They are opposite sides of the same coin.

The worst way out of the friendzone

In my previous post on this topic, I said that dumping your feelings on the girl is the wrong thing to do.

But I just saw the absolute worst way to get out of the friendzone – asking her to marry you right on the spot…before you even start dating. If you do this she’ll likely say no. But if you’re really unlucky, she’ll say yes. This example from the highly criticized Jenny Erikson:

Leif was my best friend in the entire world. He knew everything about me. He was my shoulder to cry on when I went on bad dates. I knew everything about him, and even listened to his work stories that I didn’t even understand because I don’t understand computers. But we were just friends.

Seven months before I put on that white dress, we watched Life With Mikey. I have no idea why. But that’s the movie that we watched. When it ended, he leaned over and kissed me. I hit him. And then I said three words that changed everything.

Do it again.

So he did. And we kissed. For a while. And then, this man that I loved more than life itself, but only in a platonic fashion just the hour before, asked me to marry him.

I said yes.

Take that all in. They were just friends, best friends even. She cried on his shoulder about men she dated. Out of nowhere he kissed her. And then he asked her to marry him one hour later.

Read the rest of her post. She was contemplating running away right up to her wedding ceremony. This was not a woman who was giddy in love. Of course, and predictably, they are now divorced.

I know Jenny Erikson takes a lot of criticism in the manosphere. That’s not my purpose in writing this post. I only want to talk about the relational dynamics. Let’s genericize this situation. From now on, I’m going to talk about this situation in the hypothetical, with a generic couple in this same exact situation – the guy is desperately in love and deep in the friendzone. The girl sees him as a non-sexual being, so much so that she talks about other guys with him. They kiss and after one hour two incredible (and very sad) things happen: 1) he asks her to marry him, and 2) she says yes.

On the first point, I can’t fathom how a man can ask a woman he hasn’t dated to marry him. It shows a fundamental lack of self respect and foresight. He surrendered to his desire for one woman, without any regard for what his relationship with this woman was doing to him. Ultimately it’s this same mindset that allowed him to get into the friendzone in the first place amplified a thousandfold. It’s harmful to him and to her, which leads me to the second point.

What kind of woman says yes to a marriage proposal from a man one hour after her first kiss with him? A man who she has never regarded as romantic possibility? A woman who has given up, that’s who. She probably has a type that she’s drawn to and he clearly wasn’t that type. Her type had her hurt, beaten down. Out of nowhere, her white knight best friend proposes marriage. He is her ticket out of her cycle of the hurt and betrayal she suffers from the men she really loves. In her dazed and wounded state, she says yes.

The man is too giddy in his elation at finally getting the girl of his dreams to stop to contemplate what he’s doing to himself. He doesn’t stop to think about what kind of damaged creature would say yes to such a proposal. The fact that a woman would even keep a man in the friendzone says a lot about her (none of it good) but it’s up to the man to act on the information presented to him.

I’m not absolving the woman of blame in this situation. She is clearly wrong for divorcing him, but as men, all we can do is be strong, make decisions, and most importantly make the right decisions. The guy in this scenario was not strong, otherwise he wouldn’t have been in the friendzone in the first place. He made a decision, but he made a grimly tragic decision by letting his feelings for one woman, regardless of her present lack of character, override his better judgment.

I’ve been in this very situation before – I kissed a girl I was friends with, completely out of the blue. We were only friends before that. After the kiss, we dated for a while but then I decided we weren’t right for each other and I broke off the relationship. I don’t think she felt the same way. Judging from the way she acts around me, I get the sense that she sees me as the one who got away.

However, my relationship with the girl leading up the kiss was vastly different from the scenario above. I was never in love with her. I found her attractive but I viewed her as just a friend, and I dated other women. I never let her talk to me about the guys she dated, not that she tried to. It wouldn’t have hurt my feelings, I just didn’t care and she knew it. That’s what her girlfriends are for. As a male friend, I served a different purpose in her life. Her personal-diary-with-a-penis was not one of them.

I think that there is a natural interplay between men and women that should be maintained at all times. Even if you’re just friends, male and female friends serve different roles for each other. Confusing those roles is harmful for both people, even if sexual attraction never comes into play.

A man who allows himself to be a kept male friend like this is decimating his capacity as a leader. Even in a platonic friendship between a man and a woman, the man should still maintain a leadership role within the bounds of chastity.

A girl who keeps a love struck friendzone guy around for errands and in case her weekend plans fall through is using him.

Ever since I’ve become a Christian, I’ve met many devout, mature Christian women. When these women are around weak men, men who would likely let themselves slide into that female friend role, they feel uneasy and they avoid such men.

A woman who surrounds herself with orbiters and lapdogs might think she’s powerful, as she collects “likes” on her Facebook selfies, but it’s a surefire sign of weakness, narcissism, and pridefulness.

Thoughts on the friendzone

I stated before that I am fascinated by the friendzone, mainly because I’ve never been in the friendzone. I know it’s a huge issue out there for men, otherwise there wouldn’t be so many blog posts, videos, or a section on Reddit devoted to this topic.

I’ve been trying to think about how I approach things and why is it I don’t get trapped in the friendzone. Ultimately, I think it’s about believing in your self-worth, having faith in God (I am a Christian after all), and harnessing your will to take action. Getting in the friendzone is letting passivity take over, allowing yourself to get close to a woman in a weak riskless manner, but in reality you end up in a place farther away than if you were a total stranger.

Frankly there is some really bad advice out there. Almost all the advice out there for dealing with the friendzone are tactics. Do this, do that. They don’t really address the core question – why did you put yourself in the friendzone in the first place?

One piece of advice I keep seeing is to “just tell her how you feel.” For example:

A huge part of getting out of the Friend Zone is telling your friend how you feel about them. However, there are good ways to do this, and definitely bad ones. If you are drunk, on the phone, or sitting in front of computer screens, don’t even think about it. A good confession is in person, in a quiet, private place, while you and your friend are in clear and sober states of mind.

The authors of that article even wrote a book on getting out of the friendzone. To be fair, I haven’t read the book so I’m not exactly sure what they mean by confession, but it sure seems like an emotional heart-to-heart talk. They’re not the only ones who give this advice.

Here’s the problem – it doesn’t work. It’ll hurt your chances. Chances are if you think you’re in the friendzone, the odds are stacked against you anyway. The best course of action is to never be in the friendzone in the first place, but I’ll tackle that topic later.

Assuming you are genuinely friends meaning you’re not just a beta orbiter (it pains me to use that term) and there’s a possibility you might date in the future, vomiting out your feelings onto her will not help your cause. In the off chance she has a huge crush on you, none of this might matter but why even do it if it’ll hurt your chances.

Think of your feelings for her as a heavy backpack. It’s heavy and you have to carry it over the finish line, which represents a relationship with her. You either carry it across the finish line to a relationship or you throw it aside if a relationship is not possible.

By spilling your guts to the girl you’re in love with, you’re basically saying “here, take this heavy backpack which represents my feelings. I’m gonna throw it on your shoulders. Now you do something with it. You carry it across the line or throw it aside.” That’s an incredibly weak thing to do. Your role in the relationship, if there even is to be one, is to move things forward. Dumping your feelings on her is putting the burden on her lap to move things forward when most likely she doesn’t even know how she feels about you yet.

The same circumstances don’t apply to women. There’s a reality show called Plain Jane, where a dating coach makes over a plain girl and sets up a blind date with her crush. At this date, the plain Jane always spills her guts to the guy she’s in love with. This works for women because it’s still up to the man to move things forward or not.

So what’s the best way to get out of the friendzone? I’ve never been there so I really don’t know but I think the best course of action is to make yourself into the type of guy that never gets put in the friendzone in the first place. You need to be the type of guy who, if you’re interested in a woman, forces her to evaluate you as a potential lover and (remember I’m a Christian) husband and not as a harmless friend.

I’ll write more about this in the future.