From friends to boyfriends: does the Friendzone really exist?

There is an unwritten law that seems to establish an unshakable principle of human relationships: lovers can be friends, but friends cannot be lovers. This rule has become so entrenched in our collective imagination that it can even be labeled with a word that comes from English: la friendzone, that is, the framework of relationships in which two people know each other so much without having been romantically involved that they already they will not have the opportunity to go out as a couple, have sex or let the relationship continue to develop into more areas intimate.

Exhibiting a new concept: the 'friendzone'

And, in fact, in another article we asked ourselves a question similar (or perhaps the opposite) to today's: Can friendship exist between a man and a woman? That is, are we humans capable of being able to have sincere friendly relationships with people of the opposite sex to whom we could potentially be attracted?

But, when it comes to today's topic... To what extent does this friendzone rule exist and work?

Are we really prone to an irremediable lack of romantic or sexual interest in the other person when a time has passed without anything having come up?

If this is true, no relationship between lovers could work if there had been a time between the moment these two people met and the point at which They began to meet for something else, but also, that would mean that if one of the two parties wanted to deepen their relationship with the other, they would have a great chance of facing each other. to the rejection.

Is there room for hope?

It seems that Yes. An investigation whose results have been published in the journal Psychological Science seems to point towards the fragility of the friendzone boundaries. The team that conducted this study analyzed the cases of 167 pairs of lovers (whose members may or may not be married). Specifically, they measured the time these couples had been dating, the period of time elapsed since they met until they started dating, and the degree of attractiveness of each member of the couple. The latter could be measured by using as a jury a group of students in charge of scoring each person from 1 to 7.

Interestingly, the researchers detected a correlation between the disparity in the attractiveness of each member of the couple and the period of time that elapsed between the time they met and started dating. Specifically, couples whose members were more similar in terms of attractiveness took less time to start dating, while in cases in which one of the two was much more attractive than the other, the opposite happened: they took longer to start a relationship more intimate.

The limit seemed to be around the nine months that elapsed between the time when the first conversations began and the time that corresponds to the beginning of a relationship as lovers. On average, couples who had started dating before those nine months they had a similar degree of attractiveness, and the opposite happened with the rest of the cases.

This discovery, although it does not deny the possibility that there may be a certain tendency towards the maintenance of frienzone in a large part of friendly relations, it does show its chiaroscuro. In many cases, the friendzone may be nothing more than an expression of an early-stage lack of attraction caused by a perceived difference in the other person's attractiveness. However, delving into this friendship could compensate for this initial rejection and lead to a more intimate relationship once certain pitfalls have been overcome.

The friendzone and its shadows

The conclusion of this study seems to be both an affirmation and a denial of the friendzone. He affirms it because it shows an interaction between the amount of time that passes without there being anything other than a friendship and a variable related to the search for a partner and the selection of possible sexual companions, but denies it by showing that this temporary wall can break.

Despite this, much remains to be investigated about these successfully established relationships that appear to have passed the friendzone phase. It is not known, for example, what role the prejudices in the first months of friendship, and if these are a powerful brake in the creation of a relationship as lovers. It is also not clear whether this nine-month period should be understood as a stage in which one person pretends to the other and there is a clear rejection, or if at the beginning there is no intentions to advance further in the relationship by either party due, perhaps, to the lack of expectations for the perceived difference in the attractiveness of each member of the relationship). Furthermore, it is doubtful that each of the parties has a criterion similar to that of the student jury used in this investigation when judging their own attractiveness and that of the other person.

We also don't know very well if this correlation is due to unconscious tendencies or if they are part of a conscious strategy. Perhaps one of the two people takes some time before trying to step into their relationship with the other to try to reduce the chances of rejection.

The boundaries between friendship and love are very blurred

Anyway, the boundary between friendship and love relationship seems to be blurred, as much as attractiveness may play a role in it. It is possible that what is popularly known as the friendzone is just another component of these purely cultural-based norms with which we try to put a certain order in our style of relating and, in fact, some surveys, how is.

For now it would be advisable to be cautious and do not take this study as irrefutable proof of the logic that governs the transition from friendship to sex or romantic relationship. At the end of the day, that would mean taking as valid a principle, that of the friendzone, which has not yet been validated.

Bibliographic references:

• Hunt, L. L., Eastwick, P. W. and Finkel, E. J. (2015). Laveling the Playing Field: Longer Acquaitance Predicts Reduced Assortative Mating on Attractiveness. Psychological Science, online consultation at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26068893