Why "The Friend Zone" Is a Huge Insult to Women

One of pop culture's biggest controversies:

Should Andie have gone for Duckie, or did she make the right choice in taking Blane back?

Pretty in Pink was one of the defining movies of my generation, and nearly forty years after its release, GenXers still discuss it at length. I belong to a couple of Gen X groups on social media and the topic is often tossed around. The opinions are always sharply divided. After reading multiple arguments about this movie, I realized I had something to say about the topic.

(If you haven't seen it, or don't at least know the plot, click here. I won't explain it in this post.)

You want to know what's strange? When I saw the movie as a teen, I was Team Blane.* 

Why would I be rooting for Blane? I admit he was the kind of guy I found physically attractive in high school, but he also represented the kind of people I hated. He was too good looking to be trustworthy. I knew boys in high school who came from those rich-boy cliques like the one depicted in the movie. They were awful and I would not have considered dating the handsomest among them. I love the nerds! Why would I be happy Andie and Blane ended up together?

It took decades for someone to explain to me what I had been missing all along. Those audience members who rooted for Duckie did so because they saw this lovesick guy who supposedly was looking out for Andie's best interests. He wasn't one of those snobby kids who would look down on their low-status dates as pump-and-dump opportunities. Duckie was genuine. Duckie was real thing, right? That's what John Hughes wanted the audience to believe. He didn't do a good job of it.

The truth is Duckie was no prize. He was obnoxious. He was paternalistic. He was manipulative. He was hotheaded. He was judgmental. He wanted to believe he knew what was best for Andie all the time. He wanted to force her to believe she wouldn't do better than him or that no one would feel about her the way he did. His behavior bordered on harassment at times. 

Were his intentions any better than Blane's? He wanted to get into Andie's pants as much as Blane did. He would rather assume Blane wasn't genuine instead of give him a chance to prove himself. Why not give Blane the benefit of the doubt and be happy for Andie? Isn't that what a good friend does? "Good Friend" Duckie knew if Blane and Andie ended up happy together, he would lose out permanently. He would still have her friendship, but he wouldn't do what he really want to do with her (unless you believe the fan theory that Duckie was a closeted gay man). For the first half of the movie, there was no reason for the audience to not give Blane the benefit of the doubt. He was decent to Andie. He respected her boundaries (unlike Duckie). He gave every impression he genuinely liked her. It wasn't until he disinvited her to the prom that he did anything to make himself look bad. In the end, he stood up to his friends and chose Andie over them. Was it that wrong of her to choose him?

The controversy over Pretty in Pink is a microcosm of how our culture, and particularly men, view women's choices. Men complain that women keep them in "The Friend Zone" for the wrong reasons. They believe women are ignoring the choices right in front of them. 

Why do other people, especially men, think they know what's best for women? Why do we assume women don't know their own minds? When men complain about The Friend Zone, they never stop to consider women don't want to date certain men for a reason. Women's choices not to date their best guy pal are often valid.

Most women do know their own minds. That friend who was "there all along" is a friend because that's where he belongs.  Women want different things from a romantic partner than they want from their friends. More to the point, they often demand more from their romantic partners than they demand from their friends. A guy can be fun to hang out with. He could be good for a laugh. He might share a certain hobby or occupy a specific place in your life (such as your office or your school). A boyfriend is someone you are going to be spending most of your time with. You want to feel connected with him on multiple levels. When you want to be physically and emotionally intimate with someone, you want that person to feel compatible with you in more than one area. Maybe that guy in the Friend Zone falls short in ways that matter. 

I will speak from my own experience about this.

In high school I had my own Duckie. I had that male friend who was in nearly all my classes and we spent all of high school palling around together. He wasn't as quirky as Duckie. He was more of the classic techie nerd type, but he occupied the same low rung on the high school social ladder as I did. Many of my best memories of high school were of the two of us quietly making fun of our peers and our teachers. We also playfully razzed each other, often to the point where we were butting heads (a red flag that will show up later). Classmates always asked us why we weren't a couple. We are both short, so everyone thought we were so cute together as if we were a pair of teddy bears.** My response was we shouldn't date because it would ruin our friendship.

I went through high school mostly as a wallflower and with college approaching, I wondered if it would be more of the same. Would I meet someone in college? Maybe the men in college would be as unattracted to me as my high school classmates. My Friend Zone Guy was there for the taking. I knew he liked me. All I had to do was say the word. Shouldn't I play it safe and go ahead and date him? Shouldn't I take advantage of the guy who was "there all along"? Why risk not meeting anyone in college (especially given the female:male ratio at my new school was not in my favor)? I should go with the sure thing.

Did my Friend Zone Guy and me have a happily ever after? Hardly! He had many irritating attributes I was able to tolerate in small doses when we were hanging out at school, but as we grew closer, it became harder to deal with them. He had deep insecurities (that happens when you're a badly bullied nerd), which he covered up with what was often insufferable arrogance. When I was feeling down on myself, he was as supportive as a boyfriend should be. However, if things were going well for me, he didn't care much. He wanted to be superior to me. He wanted to be the best at everything. If I was good at something he wasn't good at or didn't care about, he would be dismissive. He was never proud of me. I could tell him about something I accomplished, something I was proud of, and he would say something like, "That's nice. Guess what I did today." He always had to let me know he was smarter, his life was more interesting, and his new college friends were weirder than my new college friends. He couldn't muster much interest in anything I cared about. On top of that, the closer we become, the more I realized how much our values didn't align. He lacked empathy. He was self-righteous. He lacked an open worldview. The superficial connection we had hanging out as pals in class in high school was the only connection that worked for us.

I was right. Dating ruined our friendship. I tolerated his faults as a friend because I wasn't constantly exposed to them. When we tried to be closer, I was overexposed to all the traits I didn't like about him. Our mutual friends saw the same faults in him. They knew. Yet I'm sure many of them were hoping we would start dating even if they knew I would have to put up with his arrogance and grandstanding. The the fun times of palling around were gone forever because we were both too angry and bitter to be friends again.

I knew all along I didn't want to date my Friend Zone Guy. I didn't listen to my instincts. I was with him because I felt I "should" be with him. I wasn't smart enough to examine my reasons for not dating him. Plenty of women are smart enough.

There are lonely men out there screaming at me right now, "But the women who reject their friends are making terrible choices and going out with all sorts of jerks and losers." Sometimes this is true. Women don't always make great choices with the men they date. Maybe it's because when they date these "losers" they accept dates without knowing these men well. They are willing to try getting close to men they know nothing about. The men they are already close to are the ones they know well enough to know they don't want to date them. It's that simple.

Let's look at another pop culture bad romance from the show Freaks and Geeks. In that show, sensitive geek Sam is friendly with Cindy, a pretty cheerleader with whom he participates in a few school activities. She is always nice to him, treating him like her pet nerd. He likes her, but he's inexperienced with dating and shy. He can't find a way to express his feelings for her. She begins dating the school basketball star and Sam is jealous, but once he gets to know the guy, he likes him and can't begrudge Cindy's relationship with him. (He's not only smart and sensitive, he's open-minded and level-headed, unlike Duckie.) 

When Cindy breaks up with her basketball boyfriend, she decides to turn to her nice-guy pal, Sam. Finally the cute cheerleader realizes the right guy was there all along and she wants to date him. It's every nerd's dream. She realizes a nice guy like Sam is exactly what she needs. 

It doesn't take long for Sam to realize how wrong they are for each other. They have nothing in common outside of school activities. She hates his favorite movie. She demands gifts. The only couple activity that interests her is making out and Sam is tired of it. All this time he was mesmerized by her pretty face and didn't see she was wrong for him. He ends up breaking up with her because he's not enjoying the relationship anymore. She is devastated because she thought Sam was a nice guy who wouldn't hurt her. 

I guess Cindy needed to take a long look at the reasons why she didn't want to date Sam. Her instincts probably told her Sam wasn't a good match. She only decided to take advantage of her crush on him when she thought she couldn't do better. Look how it ended up. It doesn't guarantee a happy relationship when a woman decides to date her adoring friend simply because he's a "nice guy".

I will close this by saying this can go both ways. I am sure there are women out there with huge crushes on their male friends and hang around them hoping the friendship will turn to romance. Men make bad choices in their romantic relationships too. That doesn't mean his female sidekick is the one he is meant to be with. He may have good reasons why he thinks he and his gal pal aren't compatible. She may have personality traits he doesn't think he can handle full time. Sometimes, as the old saying goes, "He's just not that into you."  Nobody is obligated to look at an opposite-sex friend as a potential lover because you enjoy limited doses of each other's company.

*If I saw the movie for the first time as an adult, I think my dream ending would be for her to reject both boys, enjoy her single life, and look forward to meeting someone better in college.

**Sadly even though we are adults, people do that cutesy condescending thing to Kevin and me too. The curse of being a short couple.