Friend-zone & Relationships

The phrase no man wants to hear, and How to survive if you hear those words

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There are only a few words that no man wants to hear from a woman. First things first, the phrase I am referring to is “Let’s just be friends.” No man in his right mind ever wants to hear those words, but every decent guy hears them from some woman, at some point in his life.

???????????Now is being friend-zoned that big of a deal? To thousands of decent people, it is. Lots of people, men, and women being friend-zoned are more than rejection. Some people try to claim it is fake and a false definition.

From personal experience, it is real and can hurt severely. People go to the thought of men always wanting more than friendship, which is just a stereotype. Men feel love and care for others but stay silent because of society's pressure and criticism of men who truly open up to others. There are millions of men who do care for women, but only as a friend, and nothing more.

There is a study at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-00143-7.epdf that points out, that men are just as emotional as women but hide it because of society’s criticism. Personal experience and most men can understand this, that in early years of childhood men are criticized for having emotions right away. As men grow up the criticism grows stronger and stronger towards them for having feelings.

Because of this, when a decent man opens up and tells the woman how he feels about her, and how he wants more than friendship, and gets told, “Let’s just be friends” it hurts more than people think.

One of the worst things about hearing those words, which almost hurts as bad as breaking up is men forget the good memories and emotions that were felt, said, or written to them by that person. For example, I got a note from a girl I liked in college. I wrote a letter about our emotional connections, respect, and caring towards each other earlier that year. In the note of that, I asked her about us. She wrote me back to saying “How great I was”, and “how some girl would feel special when she was with me” and so on.

Nevertheless, the first thing she said was “let’s just be friends.” The rest of the note was great, she was being sincere but after reading the first line, the note all went blurry in my mind. A lot of the people I have met and friends of mine point out their thoughts of men only wanting sex, nothing more. A study of online relationships and finding relationships online:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/02654075211046635, on the website

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/11/211101094832.htm points out that men are more common in emotional heartbreak than women in most difficult relationship situations. Explaining how the stereotype of men having no emotion and only wanting sex is false.

There are choices for men on their reaction to those words, one is to still be their friend, who is going to hurt more than anything because they are around them but not the way they wish it to be. Commonly insecure men with low self-esteem are caused by a history of bullying.

(On this website is an explanation of effects caused by bullying) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK390414/

Those men stay friends because they have a crush now and believe if they help and do as much as they can to support that woman, it will change her mind. That is the definition of being in the friend zone. Normally the friendzone is almost impossible to get out of for men and women. The second choice is to put distance between you and them, for the long-term or to just stop being friends. Again, this still hurts, just not as much as the first choice.

Now for you men, sorry but eventually she will get into a relationship. Which hurts severely if it happens sooner than you thought.

Nevertheless, your choice should be set on what is best for you. If you love them as a friend still and don’t want them out of your life, it will hurt to see her with other guys and if you become the person, she vents to about relationship problems. You will survive if you talk to her and make sure she knows how you feel. Secret crushes are not a good thing a can lead to resentment and other negative thoughts.

Remember these decisions are all on you. But always remember words and people are not set in stone and even if it hurts, and you may have negative feelings towards them now, it is not the end.

It can become a great friendship as a result and can be something you need for years to come. In most of my encounters with those words, the reasons that women don’t want to have a relationship is because it kills the friendship that they need for support in challenging times of life, and men need support too.

?There is one thing I did not point out in this and that is that this happens to women, lesbians, bi, gay, trans, and all other living beings too and they have just as hard of a time to cope with this too.

I have always wondered, why no one has been able to protect themselves from this horrible situation, which comes knocking on the door of almost everyone? Guess that’s the nature of our hearts of being human. You can’t protect yourself from the feelings of rejection in less you are just a robot. Rejection and failure are the true ways you learn to succeed in life and reach your goals of love and happiness. Remember to never stop moving forward in life.

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