I would assume that we have all encountered the friend zone in either our social circle or in our own pursuit for romance. But what exactly is the friend zone?
How I would define it is being rejected sexually or romantically by another that you are interested in, but maintaining a status of friend. Essentially, they have no sexual/romantic interest in you, but enjoy having you around. Now there is absolutely nothing wrong with the idea of being in the friend zone, but due to a recent video by YouTuber Stefan Molyneux (Don’t stone me if you’re not a fan of him) I realized it is worth bringing up the speculation behind the friend zone culture and the so called ‘nice guy’ syndrome. We’ve all heard of the guy that is always around for the girl, but she keeps going back to the jerk that she apparently ‘hates so much’ and eventually (maybe 5 ten years down the road) she comes back to the ‘nice friend’ and they get married. To some, it seems to be a normal part of romantic life, to others they’ll question females and complain that the nice guys always finish last. Regardless, most people put in the said situation would not appreciate being the ‘sloppy seconds’ or the option after everyone else is taken.
Evolution and psychological theories propose rational postulates that explain this ‘phenomena’ known as the friend zone. These theories state that in the past, men have primarily gone after women that appeared to be highly fertile and possessed highly desired sexual qualities. Women, on the other hand, have tended to look for men that were stable, possessed capital goods, and embodied virtuous characteristics that could allow for some certainty in a long term relationship. Evolutionary, this makes sense. (Evolution has always been seen as the strongest survive type of idea, but to cast it in a better light it is simply accomplished through nature’s mechanism of natural selection. Traits that are desirable in a species will be continued to pass on while those that are not favorable will eventually be weeded out. Depending on the type of environment one grows up in, a trait such as being lactose intolerant could be weeded out via natural selection if dairy products are widely available and it would be hard to get by otherwise.) In this way, women over time have consistently sought men that they believed would bring stability, and would be a provider for them while men sought those that provided the best ‘eggs’ and opportunities to spread their offspring. From a completely pragmatic view, it would make total sense to seek after someone that fulfills your evolution code of either spreading ‘your seed’ to ‘the best’ or latching on to a man that would provide. Then begs the question when did friend zone come into play? Why is it that women tend to ignore the ramifications of choosing the ‘macho male’ that has absolutely no guarantee of financial stability or faithfulness in a relationship? (I will interject here to say that this is not to say that men do not have there many social flaws. The lizard instincts of men having sex with multiple people seems to be ingrained in popular culture too. Of course I am not here to take a stance on sex before marriage but effects of men’s careless actions also place a huge burden on society.)
Ancient history has few examples of the concept of friend zone. Perhaps you may find some stories about ancient Greek Gods running around, pursuing beautiful Goddesses and being rejected, but the phenomena I am referring to is a supposed upward trend in women choosing men based mainly on physical attributes. Additionally, I have been hard pressed to find any mention of such topics in ancient Chinese and Western history. It is cliche that people are generally drilled on the idea to look past the face and into the heart, but does society follow that trend? Religion often teaches to look for the spiritual characteristics prior to the physical and carnal. Perhaps people know that it is important to look for aspects of virtue, diligence, faithfulness etc. but the mechanisms that drive this desire is due to a inherent want for stability and certainty in the future. A innate desire to provide the best resources for future offspring. The piercing question that Molyneux poses is, Why did the friend zone not exist before the welfare state? (For those that don’t know what the welfare state is, it is simply a system instituted by government that ‘guarantees’ the well-being of society through various financial programs. This is not an argument to dismantle the welfare state, but what I strongly affirm to is that welfare programs create a dependence on the state and diminish accountability for the individual.) Females it seems have come to a evolutionary realization that ‘stability’ and capital does not need to be obtained through a stable partner, but rather it can be obtained through the state. The apparent diminished importance of a partner that is faithful and provides stability is put on the back of the priority list and the natural instinct would be to go after what is ‘attractive’. Attractiveness is mostly subjective, but when females (and males) see no pressing need to look for other qualities, the animal instincts of lust and carnal fulfillment drive us to go after instant gratification. The question Molynexu puts forth is obviously a rhetorical one, and it is quite clear that women have found their new dependence: the state. Now does the welfare state and the friend zone have a causal relation? No. But the correlation between the welfare state and the prominence of the ‘friend zone’ seem to have a strong connection.
(I understand the flack I could get from talking mainly about women in this article, but I want to emphasize that I recognize that men have a mass amount of problems on their own. I don’t believe that one gender is more moral or superior to the other. The reason why the focus is on women is that they consume a mass amount of the welfare state in the United States. (50% of female householder families are welfare dependent. 21.3% of US Participates in Government Assistance Programs Each Month) So yes, the friend zone is not only for guys, but it appears to be a more prevalent among males. )