Siem
"the friendzone"
I don't know if there's an official history of 'the friendzone' but this is the one I have heard.
(Please read the following like I'm telling you and old tale :blobcatreading: maybe we're sitting around a fire.)
Back in the early days of the internet, heterosexual men would gather on webbed sites and fora. There they would talk honestly about their relationships and philosophize on the nature of men, women, and their relationships. They would give each other practical advice.
Siem
The one ladder leads to a sexual partnership relationship. The other _only has friendship_ on it. :blobcatsweat:
Hence these men would advice each other to watch carefull which ladder they were climbing. If they noticed themselves climbing the friendship ladder, it was pertinent they 'hop ladders', meaning doing something to get onto the sex/relationship ladder. Lest they get stuck on the friendship ladder, or in 'the friend zone'.
Siem
But back to the 'ladder theory', because this one mutated and burrowed it's way into the popular culture and consciousness, even inspiring the aptly named MTV show 'the friendzone' in the early 2010's.
Siem
This ladder theorem goes as follows: for relationships with women, men have one ladder. Simple. Low on that ladder is friendship, higher up are sexual relationships and stable partnerships.
Women however, complicated creatures as they are, have not one but two (yes, two!) ladders for relationships with men.
Siem
In their philosophical thinking about relationships between men and women, these men sitting behind their personal computers, they coined the "ladder theory". Now, they have come up with a great deal of theories of human psychology and social and political theory, many of them forgotten in the passing of time. I'll tell you about the more recent theory of 'dad deserts' some other time, it's a laugh and a scare.
Siem
These were places of fierce and rigorous debates, of male community bonds, and new social invention.
These sites and fora are now known as the birthplace of what would become MRA, PUA, and MGTOW movements.
- I have told you about these groups and people, haven't I? Those scary groups of men, committed to the patriarchy, and social regression. United in their dehumanizing views on women, and in their violent fear of feminism.
Siem
If I haven't told you about PUA's, MRA's, and the MGTOW yet (the groups I mentioned before), these are good scary stories for another day. I think this has been enough for now.
Siem
That dreaded place in which a man and woman are friends, but from which the man cannot climb up into romance and sex, where he is doomed to the dreary fate of friendship :cat_scream_ms:
This has been the scary tale of 'the friendzone'. A sexist theory of male and female sexuality, sprung from the dark corners of the internet, slowly seeping into popular consciousness :ghosthug:
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