First off, the friendzone is just stupid. Being friends is awesome, it’s not anyone’s fault that they don’t have feelings for you, and feelings don’t just sprout up after years of friendship if they were never there in the first place. I can go into tons of detail about the “friendzone”, probably enough to make an entirely new article (or article series). But that’s not what I’m here to talk about, I’m here to tell you why it is a bad idea to “pity date” the guy that you’ve been friends with since you were kids.
I’m not going to pretend like I never had feelings for this boy…let’s call him Mike. Mike and I were best friends, and I cared about him a lot. We were together all weekend every weekend during the summertime and when we weren’t together we were talking in some format. Because of this, we also had a mutual friend group who were all very close. Over the years everyone would say, “you guys would be perfect for each other”, and the idea sounded nice, dating the boy you were best friends with after all those years? Having your high school sweetheart be your middle school best friend? Adorable, right?? Sure…In theory. That idea works really well in movies and books, and for some people too, but not for me.
Since we were all so close, I heard this a lot. Our friends would always make jokes about us dating, and that lead to some feelings sprouting. We “talked” on and off for a few years and every time he would tell me he was pursuing something more I shut it down. After some time, the group of friends we had made me feel horrible for this because they told me just how much this was affecting him. One day, I decided that I was going to give it a shot. I cared about him a lot and I couldn’t imagine not having my best friend in my life, so I finally caved and let whatever happen, happen. Finally getting out of the “friendzone” was great for him, and the start of it was great. It didn’t matter to me that I wasn’t as into it as he was. I was young and naive and thought it would just take time for me because it was my first relationship so I just didn’t know how to act in them. Four months went by, and I still didn’t ever feel as much as he did.
I wouldn’t say that I was miserable, but I for sure could have been happier. I felt like something was wrong with me, there was this great guy out there who cared about me so much and wanted to treat me so well but I never saw in him what he saw in me and it made me feel like the bad guy. We got along really well and I cared about him too, but not in the way that you care about a significant other. There was always something missing but I could never really tell what that something was.
To this day, friends from that group will talk to me about it and say things like, “oh, it was just timing”, “you guys were so young” or, “if you had just worked more it could have worked out”, but I really don’t think that’s true. There has to be more than just a good friendship to build a relationship. Seriously, if feelings aren’t there after many years there is a good chance that they won’t be there just because you call yourself boyfriend and girlfriend, and I wish someone was there to tell me that at age 16. Don’t pity date the guy in the friendzone, if there are feelings just go for it but if not then don’t force anything.