By “intentionally” I mean women who knowingly friendzone their beta orbiters specifically to use them, whether financially, emotionally, for validation, etc. These women know these men (or boys) want more and yet they have zero intention of even giving them a chance for any romantic relationship. In other words, they purposefully lead them on to benefit themselves.

Personally I can see at least 2 reasons for the “friendzone”. Reason #1: what I just described. Selfish women who want to obtain the benefits of a romantic relationship but without having to give anything in return. However, I think this describes a small minority of cases.

I believe that a prevalent reason for friendzoning (or beta orbiting, whatever you want to call it) has to do with psychology. It’s well known in developmental psych that boys and girls develop friendship differently. Boys tend to develop friendship through shared activities, whereas girls place a higher emphasis on shared intimacy. Hence when these kids go off to college where there less of a social hierarchy and more freedom (or this can even begin in high school), my theory is that lots of young men are mistaking a woman’s natural way of developing friendship with romantic attraction. Add a man's hyper active sex drive in the mix and I think it's pretty common in a lot of male-female friendships, particularly with younger guys.

Men don’t typically build a friendship based on sharing intimate thoughts, feelings, experiences, etc., That may come later, but at least initially, they build friendship on doing activities together. Thus, when a woman approaches a man for friendship, she may be approaching it the same way she does with women and that could easily be misinterpreted by him since he’s not used to developing friendships in such a manner.

I seemed to find myself in several situations of unwittingly “friendzoning” when I was younger. And I never even thought to ask myself whether my approach of spending quality time getting to know one another and openly sharing my life would be seen as wanting something more than friendship. I doubt many men or boys are self-aware enough either to see what could easily be a disconnect here.

So, PPD, do you think my theory has any validity? Or do you think women intentionally friendzone/beta-orbit-induce? (Also, men of PPD let me know if my understanding of how boys develop friendships is incorrect).