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Imagine being afraid of the ‘friend zone’
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this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
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chapotraphouse
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Probably making it so boys and men have emotional support other than their partner or therapist and generally teaching them not to treat relationships as status signifiers or commodities. Unfortunately, that probably has to start young and we already have a bunch of shitty men floating around
ugh well put & good post.
One of the examples I remember is from r4r or one of the nerd dating spheres where someone wanted a partner who was smart, but not as smart as them. Obviously, they wanted her to smart enough to impress their friends (the ones who they constantly jockey for clout about intelligence with), but didn't really want to respect her or feel intellectually threatened. Which also says a lot about what they think of their friends, let alone their prospective partner they were looking for.
Yet again, something that can quickly and easily fixed by breaking down the umbrella concept of "smart" into categories, where you can have distinction in one or a few or even several, and still easily have space for someone else close to you to have their own combination/niche.
The same goes with power/authority. Break it down into its component parts, and all of a sudden stratification is drastically minimized.
Well the problem is that relationships aren't status signifiers. They are status, in the most concrete way possible.
Edit: Like it's an old truism, that certain kinds of guys will deliberately pursue making money more than actually trying to build their social skills directly because it can open more doors for you socially & "romantically".
Edit 2: What I'm getting at here is that "status" is an inherently social concept. It has to do with the people who you interact with on a day-to-day basis, & what you can expect from your interactions with them. In this sense, yes, somebody who doesn't have a lot of friends or any romantic partners, is objectively socially inferior to somebody who does. They are, by definition, valued less by the the people around them & are less socially integrated, as a consequence of that. And that itself will usually be the consequence of the person in question possessing some quality that is considered inferior by the society they live in.
The whole issue I think is something that just isn't really well addressed by any contemporary discussion on the matter, I think.