When I was 14, I had a major crush on a female friend of mine. We got along great, had the same taste in everything, and talked all the time. Naturally, I thought that meant she had a major crush on me, too.
When I approached her about it, she was taken aback – she just wanted to be friends! She didn’t see me, the 14-year-old, 95 pounds while soaking wet nerd with a bowl cut, as someone she could be with romantically, and this made me upset. That night, I sat at the computer in my den, Googling things like “why don’t girls like me?” and “want to date my friend.” After scouring the Internet for a couple of hours, looking through weird pickup artist websites practically made for guys like me, I came across a term.
“Friendzone.”
This was what I was talking about. Finally, someone had put exactly what was happening to me into words! I was so nice to her, couldn’t she see how perfect I was compared to the other guys she liked, who smoked cigarettes and hung out in the woods?
But being “nice” doesn’t mean girls want to date you. Being “nice” doesn’t mean girls should date you. Girls shouldn’t have to do anything because you’re “nice” to them.
What does “nice” mean, anyway? If you ask a “nice guy,” it means that he’s an intellectual, far-removed from the whey-protein addled athletes and frat bros he goes to school with. He likes everything she likes, showers her with compliments and gifts, and is always there to offer advice or a shoulder to cry on. So why isn’t she going home with him?
Because in reality, he’s a sniveling, annoying creep who attached himself to this girl like a handbag, and she can’t seem to shake him no matter what. In a culture where saying “no” to a guy is beyond taboo, he feels like he should be rewarded for his behavior.
And that is not okay. That type of behavior does not deserve a reward, and to continue enabling it is to continue putting women in danger.
Why do all women seem to go for “the assholes,” as “nice guys” so eloquently put it? Because those “assholes” actually bring something to the table. Women like other guys because they are interesting. They do things. They might be musicians, or weightlifters, or windsurfers, or make their own beer or hot sauce or something, but the point is, their life doesn’t revolve around pleasing and wooing and being in love with a girl. It’s not cute or flattering when someone’s does. There’s no magic way to make a girl like you. There’s no cheat code that you can input, no combination of clothes, cologne, and witty sayings that will make women fall at your feet. The best course of action is to focus on making yourself a better, more interesting person.
As someone who was once a staunch believer in the friendzone, I know how comforting the concept is. I’d start talking to a girl, get shut down, and write it off as being friendzoned, blaming it on her, when I was really the problem. I refused to take the hint that she wasn’t into me, because nothing I was doing could have been the problem. After all, it’s her loss, right? I believed in it firmly until I was about 17, when I actually started to date one of my friends. I “escaped” the friend zone, so to speak – except I was never in it in the first place. My friend and I liked each other, and decided to take the plunge into the world of a committed relationship. A relationship is a two way thing, each person has to feel the same about the other for it to work. There’s chemistry between them, it’s a mutual attraction, not one person pursuing the other. 
