You hear it all of the time. Guys saying things like “She says that she’s looking for a nice guy, and I’m a really nice guy, why doesn’t she want me?” or “She says she likes me because I’m nice, kind and sweet and she wishes she could find a guy like me. So why does she make me just a friend and dates the assholes?” You also hear females saying stuff like “Oh my god, I know I’m hot, why does he act like he’s not interested?” or “Why does every guy I date always expect to have sex on the first date?” There are different names for this. For males it’s called the friend-zone, in the women’s case, it can either be the friend-zone or the sex-zone, where all the only thing guys look for in you is sex. Contrary to popular belief amongst the friend-zoned and sex-zoned, there are actually pretty good reasons why you might find yourself in these situations and why you should nobody should pity you for it.

Most guys say all the time that their love interest “Always says she’s looking for someone nice, but she always goes for the douche-bag and keeps me in the friend-zone.” Okay, while women do look for a guy who can be nice, sweet, sensitive and caring, that can also lead to your downfall while pursuing this certain female. The reason that women put you in the friend-zone when you try your best to be the nicest guy you can is simply because, you are just too nice. You being so nice and understanding all of the time almost makes it seem like you use kindness to compensate for your lack of a backbone. Or at least that’s how she sees it. For example, you have a new hot girl that you are trying to hook up with and you regularly talk on the phone with her. She frequently talks about her ex and how much of an asshole he is and probably spends at least 30 minutes out of a whole conversation talking about how bad the men in her past were. Now here comes the part where you end up putting yourself in the friend-zone. In the middle of the convo, she says something like “Oh, you like MMA (mixed martial arts)? My ex-boyfriend trained MMA and he was such a douche.” That is usually when you should kind of ask why the guy was a douche and if she wants to talk about it. Now if you let her tell the story, then end up letting her ramble on and on about all the different things the ex boyfriend did for about a whole hour, then congratulations, you just became that friend who is a really good listener. Instead of just listening, either 10 minutes into the story or as soon as she named the act that makes her ex boyfriend such a bastard, you should stop and say something like “Yea, that guy really is a douche, but you shouldn’t even think about him anymore, just know I wouldn’t do that.” It’s best if you just don’t even let her get into talking about exes until you know you’re not going into the friend-zone by letting her know that she should be focusing more on how good of a boyfriend you are by not letting her even think about her ex while she’s having a conversation with you. Because, a woman wants a man who is going to be able to handle to situation and defend her (even if she can handle herself) if a guy decides to disrespect her in front of you, whether its a random jerk or her ex. She puts you in the friend-zone for being that super nice, friendly, really good listener because in that type of situation, just letting the guy disrespect her without harsh retaliation and the only thing you can do is listen to her talk about it later really isn’t worth a damn.

If you are a female and wondering why a guy only wants to have sex or sex is the first and only thing on the minds of men that you date, even though you try your best not to provoke, then it might be because you are boring or because you are teasing and just don’t want to admit it. Now to be fair, if you decide to meet the guy for coffee and within five minutes he’s trying to grope you even though you never mentioned sex or anything and probably told him to stop already, then he’s a pig. If you invite a man over to your house to talk at a reasonable hour and try to have a decent convo but he can’t even concentrate because he’s looking at your body the whole time even though you have on a turtle neck, then he might be a horn-dog. But, if you call a man at 10:30 at night saying that you are bored, or sad, or lonely, and when he shows up, you don’t say anything worth having a conversation about, you say that you don’t want to go out and do anything, you just sit there on the couch looking dumb despite all of his efforts to try to find something worth while to do or talk about besides sex, then guess what is going to be on his mind? BINGO! Sex for 200 points! Now if the guy tries to force himself on you or rape you, then yes you have every right to knee him in the crotch and kick him out. But if after doing everything I name in the past few sentences, and the guy genuinely tried his best to not try to instantly bring up sex before finally getting bored and fed up with the awkward silence and said “Why don’t you come a little bit closer?” or “Do you want to cuddle up under the blanket?” then you really can’t blame the guy nor be mad at him for it. The fact is (assuming that the guy isn’t captain pervo) that if you would have agreed to going out with him or at least tried to have an interesting conversation with him, he would have talked to you for hours without even thinking about sex (trust me ladies it does work). The same thing goes for first dates. If don’t want a guy to constantly hint at having a little “hot coffee” at the end of the night or constantly trying to feel you up for the entire date, try to ask questions and talk about something that will have be interesting and make him want to talk about something besides sex. I mean seriously, if the guy asked you out on the date a few days prior to the actual date, then you should be able to think of some better questions than “So what’s your favorite color?” or “So do you ever watch Mob Wives?”

Now to address the “friend-zoned” guys who always want you to feel sorry for them. The ones who want you to believe that the girl is a heartless stupid bitch and the guys that she dates are douche-bags. The true fact is that this guy really isn’t any better than the so-called “douche-bag”. Now this guy may be super sweet and nice to the girl and do a lot of favors, but let’s look at this for what it really is. The lonely friend-zoned guy will do the girl who friend-zones him major favors as well loan her money all the time, even though he rarely ever does this for his guy friends or regular female friends. Why? Because he feels like by doing all of these favors, one day the girl is going to “realize” that she owes him sex or at least a date for everything he has done. These types of guys always complain about how, the next guy is going to be an asshole and is openly more cautious than the female. Even if the girl he’s in the friend-zone with has a decent guy, he will constantly try to give her reasons to break up with him or second-guess the relationship. He will blow every small thing his rival does out of proportion to make the girl see something wrong with the situation. He might go as far as to say crazy things like “He said he’s having a guys night out? Didn’t he have one of those 3 months ago? What does he do on his guy’s night out? Play video games? I’m just saying this as a friend, but he should care more about you than the stupid video games and douche-bag friends.” Now does that sound kind of irrational? It doesn’t matter to this particular brand of friend-zone guy, because not only does he think, he knows, hell he’s even counting on the new boyfriend being the douche-bag who really hurts his female friend so that he can play the “nice guy who she never gave a chance” swoop in while she’s vulnerable, and get what he’s been wanting all of time. Now I’m saying that every guy in the friend-zone is like this, but for the guys who are like the asshole that was described above, who uses favors and money to buy the affection of his crush and waits for some guy to hurt the poor girl so that he can take advantage while she’s vulnerable, you are no better than the true douche-bags who leave the girl hurt. By the way, women in the friend-zone can be guilty of this also. So just let that sink in.

So there you have it folks, two reasons why you might get friend-zoned and an example of the worst type of friend-zoned person you can be. It’s never good to be in the friend-zone. Sometimes it can be heartbreaking. But sometimes, it might be your own fault that you are in the friend-zone. So the best advice for the friend-zoned guys and sex-zoned females: Have a backbone and assert yourself, try to actually be interesting and for the love of god, if you find yourself in the friend-zone after more than a couple of months, just let the person go instead of constantly hoping that they will get their heart broken so you can get your opportunity.