"The friendzone isn't real." Uh, yeah it isn't a real place, like Des Moines, Iowa. It's a concept. It's as real as any other concept in dating. "Situationships", "friends with benefits", blah blah. Concepts describing interpersonal relationships. The friendzone isn't even difficult to understand; one person wants romance, the other only agrees to friendship. The former is forced to choose friendship or nothing. Usually this leads to misery. I will agree with the concept that "you put yourself in" the friendzone; however, men in particular get vilified for opting to not remain there too.

Obviously, the friendzoned (usually man) can be a dick in this situation and be mean and nasty and spiteful. But...the friendzoner can also be a dick. And the latter is almost never acknowledged. Almost all the time the 'zoner knows that the 'zoned is still harboring romantic feelings and they can use them for free validation and attention. They can play the plausible deniability game all they want and they will never get called out on it. They hold the power since its now unbalanced. Even if the 'zoned is really gracious in bowing out of the friendship they usually get poorly characterized as either bitter, or a schemer creep who only became friends to angle for sex, or both.

I see so many posts all over reddit calling men (most often) all sorts of negative things even when they try to end the friendship tactfully. I think this should just be expected standard when romantic interest is turned down; you should default to acquaintances, not friends. The whole act of saying "lets be friends" is weird and unnatural. Almost no other time is friendship formally offered; you just naturally become friends. Only in a very rare occurrence where the 'zoned can completely put aside the romantic interest will this work; otherwise, the friendship will be a complete farce full of misunderstandings, imbalances, and unmet expectations. I think the 'zoners often consciously or unconsciously want their cake and to eat it to by maintaining someone in their life they know is an orbiter more than a friend. Just how I feel. More specifically, I think women should be a little less determined to maintain "guy friends" when they know there's romantic desire there.....You know better and a lot of us know you know better. The relationship dynamic changes when the romantic interest genie is out of the bottle.