The Friend Zone

If you read this and think it's about you, you're probably right.  Sorry, ladies.

When it comes to entering womenfolk's friend zones, I am incredibly talented. Why? I am charming, handsome, and smart enough to be reliable and desirable company for all the fantastic ladies on this green earth. Conversely, I am awkward, cute, and cynical enough to keep myself without any room for a relationship to flourish. Any guy who hasn't been living under a rock for the entirety of their lives understands that this situation is extremely hard to extract oneself from - luckily, I've never been in a situation where I've needed to. I am not the type who is constantly in need of some sort of romantic gratification, nor do I find women to be entirely terrible to keep in company (if you know me, which chances are you do if you are reading this, you'll know that 99% of my friends are women and that I am essentially of a feminist ideology, despite the fact that I have a penis and am not a homosexual).

The problem now, however, is that I have voluntarily entered a romantic situation that his quickly spiraled out of my control (see my last post), and can't determine for myself whether it is beneficial to become a permanent fixture in the friend zone, or to opt out of any sort of relation with the girl in question altogether. To explain my "crisis" more thoroughly, however, I'll need to give a little bit of back story with my pathetically inactive love life thus far.

Basically, I define myself by the fact that I am in love with the concept of love - something that I am actually somewhat ashamed of. I'm pretty sure it came about as a result of seeing too many Disney films as a child - how many teenagers do you think Walt Disney has fucked up? Anyway, when I meet a girl who I'm attracted to, I'm extremely hesitant to look any further into a relationship with this person. The reason? Experience has told me that I need to be cautious. When I determine that a relationship may be likely with a given person, I devote myself fully toward the goal of wooing them - and since I am not by any means a seductive individual, I tend to have the effect of turning them off and coming off as a total creeper. This seems completely foolish and stupid, and I often ask myself why I am so willing to throw myself at one goal where the probability of success really has nothing to do with how hard I work for it. But again experience has taught me that my relentless pursuit of the objects of affection is one of the few completely unchangeable facets of my personality - in the same vein as my seemingly permanent low self-esteem and my constant desire for the approval of others.

My freshman year of high school was when I was mostly provided this experience. After a few months affirming my status as the creepy nerd in the class, I somehow ended up completely infatuated with - you guessed it - the girl who sat fucking right in front of me. The most stereotypical attraction in the world, and I fell victim to it. My mind still has trouble processing the stupidity of my 14-year-old self, for an obvious reason: I reluctantly admit that I still have feelings with this girl. My constant one-sided flirtation with this girl led her to hate my guts - something I am still paying for to this day. I'll obviously never be able to satiate this desire - I would never let a person who ever acted that idiotically toward me back into consideration for a romantic relationship.  The point is that I got stupid.

Thus, I've been extremely hesitant about who I take interest in. It took an extremely long time for me even to be able to find myself genuinely attracted to other women, and I was so scared of having yet another unrequited love that, aside from one girlfriend, I've never felt the same sort of strong romantic attachments again - even in situations where they should have formed. That is, until now.

Recently, a young woman walked into my life at one of the most unexpected of social events, and after a long period of time without contact, I've reconnected with her. The important thing is that about a month ago I decided that I may have actually started to become legitimately interested in her - not just in the I'm-a-horny-teenager way. The pieces suddenly fit together in my head: I've got nothing to lose by pursuing a relationship with her; plus she's absolutely gorgeous, incredibly intelligent, and super classy. Maybe I could even use my budding attraction with her to distract me from my obsession over the previous girl. The next day, as I my self-confidence grew immensely with this newly-found hope and excitement, she got a boyfriend.

Shit.

So here I am now, back at square one, and I am left with a decision to make. On one hand, I've got the option of essentially scrapping all the progress I've made with her, and not having to worry about my feelings with her, which would eventually fade with time. On the other, I've got the option of entrapping myself within the friend zone, and getting closer to her in a way that will probably not end well for me.

Option #1 would result in an overwhelming sense of guilt, since I do actually care about her feelings, and I'm sure she values my current relationship with her, no matter how weird it is for me - ending it would hurt her feelings. Also, I might not be able to end my feelings toward her so quickly, since she is an incredible lass. Knowing me, I would also probably experience regret toward choosing not to advance our relationship any further, since few other women in this world are as magnificent as her.

Option #2 would allow me to grow closer to her, but the friend zone is an option about which I've become very cautious in high school. I predict that becoming closer to her will not happen without my sexual attraction to her fading, or even remaining as strong as it currently is. Even after she might break up with her boyfriend, she'll be unable to requite my affections, seeing as how at that point I'd be more of a friend than a suitor.

So which is the lesser of two evils? Torturing myself for the sole sake of being around a woman I care about? Or is it better to break off some of the bonds I've formed, which may potentially harm the girl and make me feel, for lack of better words, like a total douche? Fuck you, friend zone.

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Update! I got overexcited by the dim prospects of a potential relationship with a girl who doesn't know or like me all that much and have pretty much reverted back to my usual pathetic obsession with girl A.  So I guess whether or not I'm actually friend-zoned doesn't really matter that much.   It's healthy to be distracted from your own helplessness for a month every three years or so, anyway.