“’Slut’ is attacking women for their right to say yes. ‘Friend Zone’ is attacking women for their right to say no.” Serious question...just like no one HAS to date you, no one HAS to be your friend...I've been on both sides of the equation, most have...what is this thing where if someone doesn't return interest you HAVE to be their friend? IF you have any respect for them, you give them an option...why is there all this stuff about "Friend zones" being disrespectful lately...your opinion?
There’s no one saying you have to be friends with a person after they don’t return romantic interest in you. No one saying there’s anything wrong with just being friends after the rejection.
The “friendzone” phenomenon, coined and spearheaded by “nice guys”, is a way to make the woman who has rejected the man’s advances look like the horrible person. “SHE HAS NO RIGHT TO REJECT ME! HOW SHE JUST GON’ REJECT ME! I WAS NICE TO HER!” Instead of moving on and accepting that the young woman was not attracted to him (and that should not have any barring on how he sees himself), he becomes salty and tries to shame her decision by saying she “friend-zoned” him. That somehow she led him on despite the fact that she may have verbalize her non-attraction to him. Specifically, the “nice guy” attempts to be his crush’s friend silently hoping that she will notice him as a potential romantic interest. However, once that young woman communicates (verbal/non-verbal) her non-attraction to him, his “nice guy” act disappears and his true misogynistic colors show. In order to shift the embarrassment and stroke his ego, he says she friend-zoned him. The major issue with this social phenomenon is entitlement over women and their person-hood. Women do not owe “nice guys” anything just because they feigned being “nice” in order to date her or sleep with her (essentially manipulating and using the young woman). You should be genuinely nice just to be nice not to gain something from the situation.You cannot make someone feel bad and socially scorned/harassed because they did not want to date/sleep with you.
As far as “IF you have any respect for them, you give them an option”, I don’t fully agree with that. If you don’t want to romantically be involved with this person (which assumes you don’t want to be involved with them at all), you don’t owe them any options. We’re going back to that entitlement issue. They should just accept your non-interest and move on. You should never feel like you have to give them something because you don’t want to hurt their feelings. You’re compromising yourself. That, “We can still be friends.” is an extremely passive method to rejecting a person in total and can give this impression that in the future you will be interested in them. If you want to give that option that’s your personal choice. I would just prefer not having this sense of an option once I rejected them or once they rejected me. I’m not one for keeping folks around who I don’t have a serious interest in (friends/romantic/etc) just because I don’t want to “hurt their feelings”. That doesn’t show my respect, or lack of respect, for them. If there is a possibility of a friendship, just allow that to happen when it does. There’s no need to give options in forming true,organic friendships.
