Just Friends

Probably everyone has heard the term friend zone- even they don't know the word, it seems that everyone is familiar in the concept. Friend zoned is the term given for those guys who are treated as a friend or a younger brother despite of their obvious affection on woman that they want. It seems like it is a terrible curse to obtain that pathetic title, "Mr. Friend Zoned ".

      Recently, it become a vibrant and meme word in many communities in the world wide web.  As I Browse and observe around, I figured out that this term is more commonly used by men. I took some time formulating a hypothesis on what's the reason behind.

I was looking for an answer when I found the article " The Truth Behind the Friend Zone". Dr. April Bleske-Rechek, Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin, published her findings in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships after inviting students to come to her lab with a friend of the opposite sex and answer questions about each other. The questions asked them about how attractive they found their friend, whether they would consider dating their friend and also how attracted they felt their friend was to him (or her).

First they discovered that the guys were all attracted to their female friends more than the women were attracted to them. This is consistent with the portrayals we see in the media – think Friends and Ross being more attracted to Rachel than she was to him and Jacob’s attraction to Bella in Twilight. Interestingly, both men and women were more attracted to their friend when they thought their friend was attracted to them – but it would appear that hardly any men think: ‘Wow! I bet she’d be a great person to just hang out with’ as women have always suspected.

They also discovered that the men’s attraction to their female friends didn’t change with relationship status – either his or theirs. But for the women, if their male friend was in a relationship they found him less attractive and when in a relationship themselves, all women were significantly less interested in the prospect of dating their ‘friend’.

The last part of the findings are perhaps the most significant of all. It was discovered that men consistently over-estimated their female friend’s attraction and desire to possibly date them while the women consistently underestimated their male friend’s attraction to them but accurately gauged their desire to date them! So, if you’re a woman in the Friend Zone your ‘vibe’ about whether your male friend wants to date you or not is probably correct. If you’re not in a relationship you could do worse than a quick inventory of your single male friends because it’s likely they consider you attractive and want to date you. Remember the study showed women consistently underestimate how attractive their male friends find them. Guys, your female friends most likely just want to be friends. End of story.     

One problem regarding this matter is that males overestimated female friend’s interest , while females underestimated their male friend’s attraction but accurately gauged the male friend’s desire to date them. Most guys ended up stuck in friend zone because most of the time, they prospect their female friends as a dating partner which women doesn't have in mind. This is a serious problem. That could be the reason why many men has trapped in such platonic relationship. For the reason that, They are very assuming.