The Friend Zone.

From, of all places, a thread about JK Rowling confessing that she screwed up the Romance parts of Harry Potter.

The friend zone is absolutely not a myth. The only part of it that is a myth is that there is any way to avoid it in the first place, as far as I’m concerned. I mean, if I meet a guy and he becomes my friend instead of something else, it is because there is nothing else he ever could be, no matter what.

But, I did have a friend who I was attracted to and who was attracted to me, where neither of us was in a position to do anything about it, and, by the time we could have, we had been friends for so long neither one of us wanted to try to be anything else and screw that up.

There was a guy I was attracted to, who was attracted to me, but, then, his dad married my sister and they told him that makes him my nephew (even though she never adopted him, we were almost adults ourselves, and there was obviously no blood relation there) and that’s all it took to make him lose interest.

Then, there are the various guys who told me they were interested in me, but .l. too far away, couldn’t explain me to their friends or family, they were friends with a relative of mine or an ex of mine, or, whatever … so, that was that. I was friend-zoned.

One guy, apparently, friend-zoned me because he was ill and thought he shouldn’t get involved with anyone. Then, because, he thought I was too ill and I shouldn’t get involved with anyone. Then, eventually, because, he did get involved with his caregiver. lol

However, for my part, if I was going to get involved with anyone else, they would have to be my very good friend, first; so, that respect, the friend-zone is a myth, because, once you are mature and not just looking for “hot”, then, the friend-zone is where you would be going to find someone who can be more than a friend, having realized that no one can be more than what they are not already.

The contradictions between being a friend and friendzoned give us men a minefield to walk through. And that was part of the Romance subplot in the Potter books that JK Rowling got fairly right.