Succinct and wrong.
Men (and women! who do exist!) who complain about being stuck in the friend zone aren’t lamenting that it’s shitty to have friends who are the gender they’re attracted to but who aren’t romantic or sexual partners; they’re lamenting that it’s shitty to *not have any romantic and)or sexual partners*, even if they have friends (of the gender they’re attracted to or otherwise).
And some people who engage in such lamentation have shitty views about the psychology of the opposite sex. Some have views that aren’t particularly shitty, but are simply *factually wrong*. And some don’t.
(The tendency of some people, mainly women, to explain their lack of romantic interest in very “ladder theory”–like terms in a misguided attempt to “let ‘em down easy” is pretty clearly the fundamental cause of many of the incorrect ideas here, although at this point a number of them have taken on a life of their own, sometimes in strange, mutant forms. In fact, I’d argue that ladder theory is nothing more than what you get when a bunch of straight men take multiple straight women’s “white lies” at face value, and then (over)generalize the resulting conclusions from “many women, including all the ones I’ve gotten up the courage to ask out, are like this” to “all women are like this.” But that’s a distinctly secondary point.)
I would rather (continue to) have any of my female friends as friends than not have them as any of friends, sexual partners , or girlfriends. If this weren’t the case, I wouldn’t be friends with them in the first place.
But out of those of them who aren’t close relatives, underage, or taken, I would still prefer to have *any* of them as friends + (happy) girlfriends and/or sex partners (ideally both) than as friends alone, absent specific and compelling reasons not to. I’m frankly kind of confused as to why anyone (who is sexually attracted to women) wouldn’t.
That doesn’t imply that I don’t value their friendship, absent anything more! It doesn’t even suggest it!
And yes, it is frustrating that some of these women like me as a friend, are single, *and* are attracted to men, and yet don’t want to at least give dating and/or having sex with me a shot to see how they (and I) like it. If I imagine their brains as working similarly to mine as regards romantic and sexual desire, then it seems like they logically should. But in fact, they don’t. And that is what being in the friend zone means, fundamentally, and it does, in fact, suck. It sucks *less* than having neither (platonic) female friends nor a girlfriend — precisely because I *do* value their friendship, even if it will never lead to anything more — but it still sucks.
And the more you try to argue that it doesn’t, and that only some caricature of am entitled misogynist would think that it does, the more you’re going to (1) hurt decent people who don’t in any way deserve that and (2) drive the people you’re hurting into the arms of your anyone that’s willing to risk bring called the full litany of feminist insults to take a stand against you.
If you’re *lucky*, that will be someone like me, or @slatestarscratchpad, or @theunitofcaring, or @funereal-disease. Someone, in short, who recognizes the cyanide in your Kool-Aid for what it is, and who believes in egalitarianism and basic human decency.
But if you’re not, it will be redpillers, or worse.
And yeah, a guy who *lets* himself be driven into the arms of redpillers is morally responsible for that. But you sure as hell bear some responsibility too.
