It’s also possible he wasn’t. There are several women I was attracted to in school who I kind of find off-putting now, for many reasons other than physical beauty. And vice-versa.
Several probably feel the same about me.
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I understand the intentions here are pure, but… no. There is no woman-centric version of “the friend zone”, because in a game that has a part of the field called a friend zone, women are not players, they are prizes. In a game of football, no one asks the football which end of the field they prefer to be moved toward, that makes no sense. Neither does it make sense to create a goalpost for women opposite the friend zone.
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Same with me, I was often attracted to walking disasters, but I find that a dodge rather than answer. I think the direction of many of these comments that it’s unsustainable to be both attracted to and respectfully distant from someone to be very unrealistic. what is the expectation, to leave every social circumstance where theres somebody you’re attracted to? Grown-ups can do better.
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Okay, I think there might be a misunderstanding here of what the friendzone is.
The friendzone isn’t an objective thing. It’s when a man who’s actively pursuing a woman is having his advances denied.
It’s different than someone being a grown up and accepting that they can’t “get that”. It’s the opposite.
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Speaking for my self only, I am terrible at taking hints.
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If you are a socially inept person and ‘media’ is your only window into the world (which I guess is the background of a lot of these incel/nic guy types) it’s hard not to. Of course most people will think ‘what I see is somewhat exaggerated’. But they won’t find out till later that it’s not just ‘somewhat exaggerated’ but an actual fairy tale which has hardly anything to do with real life.
I’m so glad that back when I was at that age there was no internet and the only tv we could receive were some public broadcasting nets. I had to go out. Though even I was somewhat tainted by book romance 
And then there’s stuff like the 24/7 murdoch propaganda machine which leads to Trump&friends. Which somehow succeeded in stretching this adolescent problem to large swathes of the general population. Urgh ,scary.
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The media does not represent reality. Studies on the prevalence of STD are far more serious and consistently estimate the number of adults who almost never have sex (less than 1 in 12 months) at about 15-20% in developped western countries. That is male and female, of course. The percentage of people who have many different sexual partners (I think something like more than 10 in a year) is lower, but the media present it differently.
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I am from a different era, and I remember the time when common advice was that if someone was romantically interested and you were not interested in pursuing a relationship, you were not supposed to stay in contact, so as to avoid ambiguities. I would not try to stay “friends” with a woman who were sexually interested in me and I were not. I would stay polite if I met her at a function, of course, but I would actively seek to avoid further contacts.
Just to make it clear: the above does not mean one cannot be friend with someone of the opposite sex. More like: if the motivation of the other person is sexual interest and it is not reciprocated, why would you seek to stay in contact? Or in other words: do not say “let us just stay friends” but “maybe we should part our ways”.
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I’m from this era but I’ve totally ended more friendships than I’ve had romantic relationships this way. I notice the person starting to ramp up and so I disappear. I’ll usually let them ask one time but I make sure there’s distance there because being dumped by friends because they desperately want you to be some one you are not (always the case when some one romanticizes you one way without reciprocation). that hurts terribly. Feeling like a human no one wants to know trapped in a body with cavities of more value than your entire life… nah… just nah… Happens with girl/girl too… had a best friend since high school dump it all on me and demand an answer the very month I left my home, job, marriage and the year I was diagnosed with cancer… last goddamned thing I needed… 15 years and now we barely talk… all because I couldn’t be the sex partner she wanted so the friendship is sunk off the coast of my life somewhere. Personally, I’d prefer a more stoic and open communication style. I’ve had a partner for many years now though and it helps… but I’ve also been burned out on friends beyond “party acquaintances” for a while recently too.
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I understand what your mean. Maybe I should have said that it is the responsibility of both parties to end up what is suddenly an awkward situation. If I would be attracted to some woman and she was not interested, I would not seek regular contacts after it was clear that she is not interested.
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That’s my pension plan you’re talking about! 
@Michael_R_Smith I find threads like this and other stuff on the internet about white male privilege and toxic masculinity have been a huge help to me (an old white guy) to start to counter 50-odd years of cultural conditioning. It gives me great hope for the future.
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Yes but no health class I took ever pointed that out. This is the kind of thing teens should be taught imho.
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And, it’s a movie, Not real life.
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It goes at least back to the incredibly sexist patriarchal Medieval concept of Courtly Love, the aftershocks of which are still poisoning our culture today.
Love at first sight is another toxic idea. Real human relationships evolve, sometimes because people change, more often because people learn more about each other. Physical attraction is fine and for most of us it’s necessary (I won’t say everyone because humans are complicated), but in no way is it sufficient for a healthy human relationship. Relationships are work…welcome work for the willing, but still work.
It’s good that you recognize what you can and cannot accept. Some people can accept unrequited attraction and remain good friends, but many cannot, or even just don’t want to. And neither is more right. The myth that everyone works the same way often gets in the way of people knowing themselves because it encourages them to fit into a specific cultural expectation about how they should be able to feel. But I have to disagree with the implication that it’s merely a matter of the era in which someone is raised. People vary widely within each “generation”.
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I think that the fact that a sizeable part of the population rarely has sex is not discussed anywhere. The data is available (for the USA, look at the CDC) and is pretty solid. Discussion is generally frown upon, people argue that answers are under reality (which is true but accounted for), etc… I think that the data crosses various taboos.
The data itself is a byproduct of study of STDs risk. People not having sex are not at risk, so while they are in the study, they are not discussed.
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Yes, but even relatively “progressive” sex ed just seems to teach consent + contraception + stds.
[Extremely Mark Corrigan voice]
I think a good sex ed would lower expectations - teach the children that life is not a circus of sucking and fucking, and there may be years of neither!
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This is not quite what I was saying. In any case, I think that sexual attraction is a powerful force and I would advise not to count on other people being able to shut it down without effort. If they are, good, but I would not assume this by default.
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It should and, at least in my times, it did not teach that life was a circus of sex. But it never mentioned that a large part of the population is abstinent, indeed.
But, as I said, the idea crosses a few cultural taboos, so it is unlikely to get taught any soon.
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Ah, thank you for clarifying. I agree entirely. Assumptions are bad in general, but especially in dealing with human relationships and attraction. All relationships, friendship or otherwise, are mutual endeavors, and assumptions are the same as unilaterally deciding the other person’s role, which is a form of entitlement.
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