“You don’t know the one
who dreams of you at night
and longs to kiss your lips
and longs to hold you tight.
To you, I’m just a friend;
that’s all I’ve ever been.
No, you don’t know me.”
“You Don’t Know Me”
~Eddy
Arnold, popularized by Ray Charles
I think it’s safe to say that most
people who are single would prefer not to be. Chances are, most of them
(Who am I kidding?) us also have
someone in mind who we’d like to date, a perfect partner with just one problem standing
in the way: the dreaded friend zone. Nice-guy/-girl syndrome. “The [oft-] discovered
country, from whose bourn no traveler returns.” (Shakespeare was referring to
death, not the friend zone, but some would argue that they’re practically the
same thing.)
Unrequited love, or “the friend zone,”
as it has come to be almost exclusively known, has become a cultural
phenomenon. The phrase first appeared on the TV show Friends in 1994, and recently made it into the Oxford English
Dictionary, much to the chagrin of at least one feminist writer.
One need nearly search online for the friend zone, and thousands of hits will
appear, from articles written on how to escape it, to passive-aggressive rants
and memes, written mostly by men, complaining about females who are supposedly
too stupid to realize what’s best for them. One might even find this article,
which is not meant to be either.
The effect,
however, is hardly new. While the term “friend zone” is relatively young,
unrequited love has been a common artistic theme for thousands of years. Long
before Taylor Swift sang “You Belong with Me,” Eric Clapton bemoaned his
relationship with “Layla.” Peeta may have thought himself alone in Katniss’s
friend zone, but he was only reliving what Apollo had felt millennia before
while chasing after Daphne. As long as human beings fall in love, there will be
a friend zone, and thousands of frustrated singles, at some point in their
lives, will somehow have to accept that.
Not everyone
means the same thing, however, when they refer to the friend zone. People in
the zone tend to paint themselves as noble, tragic heroes, who suffer for the
good of their would-be-companions, putting up with unspeakable heartache in the
name of love, without asking anything in return. Others tend to disparage those
in the friend zone as socially inept creeps who objectify their romantic idols,
neither possessing courage nor deserving pity. Realistically, both extremes of
people do exist, and scores fall somewhere in the middle. In truth, there are
three different friend zones, each with its own unique relationship between the
lover and love’s recipient. To illustrate this, each zone will be personified
by a well-known literary character, each of whom might claim, in today’s
jargon, to be “in the friend zone.”
The First Friend Zone – William Collins,
Pride and Prejudice
Portrayed here by Tom Hollander in Pride & Prejudice (2005)
“If therefore she actually persists in rejecting my suit, perhaps it
were better not to force her into accepting me, because if liable to such
defects of temper, she could not contribute much to my felicity.”
While Mr.
Collins is arguably the least likeable character in the book, his ineptitude
may make him the most fun to read. A dangerous combination of foolish and
arrogant, Mr. Collins moves quickly between romantic interests, unable to
understand why anyone would reject him. He sees the women he associates with as
means to an end, and when things goes wrong, he casts the blame exclusively on
his supposed beloved.
The blame game
is common in the friend zone. Hordes of unrequited lovers spend an inordinate
amount of energy complaining about the deficiencies of those they claim to
love. As one show put it, “If you don’t want to date me, that’s fine, but you’re
wrong, and I hate you.”
While it’s common knowledge that being
rejected, even being rejected kindly, isn’t fun, if someone is so quick to
criticize their supposed object of affection, is said affection genuine? There
are far too many Mr. Collins’s in the world, claiming to be in the friend zone,
when, in reality, they aren’t very friendly at all.
The Second Friend Zone – Eponine Thernardier,
Les Miserables
Portrayed here by Samantha Barks in Les Miserables (2012)
“Promise to give me a kiss on my brow when I am dead… And by the way,
Monsieur Marius, I believe that I was a little bit in love with you.”
Eponine may
steal people’s hearts and sympathies in the musical adaptation of Les Miserables, but she’s a little
different in Victor Hugo’s novel. One common thread in both versions, however,
is her secret longing for Marius. Eponine, here, represents the secret admirers
of the world, those who seek out their beloveds in friendship, waiting for
their crushes to make the first move. Meanwhile, those they love look on with
ignorance or apathy.
Unlike those in
the Collins category, Eponines generally maintain good relationships with those
who’ve friend zoned them. Their partners wonder how they managed to find such
dedicated friends, often without imagining any further possibilities. Indeed,
the Eponines of the world often unwittingly find themselves in the horrendous
role of the confidant, he or she who bears the burden of listening to their
love’s romantic successes and frustrations. Often, whether consciously or not,
this group will seek to sabotage their partners’ love lives, clinging to hope
that everything will work out between them in the end.
Those in the
second friend zone find fear holding them back. Revealing their feelings, they
wonder, might spoil the friendship, and isn’t a friendship better than nothing
at all? Unfortunately, this prevents them from finding any sense of resolution
or closure. Eponines, until they either reveal their feelings or find a way to
move on, generally find themselves trapped between their hope of a miraculous
romance with their friend and their ongoing frustration and fear that nothing
ever seems to work out. Eponine waited until her final breath to reveal her
feelings. How long will the rest of us wait?
“For you, and for any dear to you, I would do anything.”
Poor Sydney. Intellectually
gifted but socially challenged, Mr. Carton fell for the beautiful Lucie
Manette, only to lose her to a man who could pass as his identical twin (at
least he knew his looks weren’t the problem). But Sydney would not be a Mr.
Collins, criticizing his love for her decision-making abilities. He did not
choose Eponine’s path, mulling away his suffering in silence, while secretly
hoping for a way into Lucie’s heart. Rather, he confronted his feelings and
accepted the situation by giving her one of the greatest promises in all of
literature. Sydney not only promised his love to come to her aid if she ever
needed him, he extended that promise to all those she loved, including (GASP!)
the man who had won her heart.
Sydney’s love
was never reciprocated. (Ironically, Mr. Collins is the only one on this list
who eventually marries.) His love, however, was genuine. It was enough to
overcome jealousy; it was an honest desire for his beloved’s happiness. Did he
find happiness of his own? Well, you’ll just have to read the book to find out.
What do we
learn from these three? First of all, that 1800s Europe was a horrible place to
find love. Second, though many claim to be in the friend zone, there’s no
telling what this might entail. Are there misogynists in the friend zone?
Certainly. Do some of them deserve sympathy? Probably. Is there a way out? Who
knows? But if you find yourself in the friend zone (and most of us probably
have or will someday), go ahead and ask yourself: are you going to be a
Collins, an Eponine, or a Sydney?
To read more of Riley's work, click here.
To read more of Riley's work, click here.
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