Lopsided Relationships: the Friend Zone and FWBs | Girls Chase

Lopsided Relationships: the Friend Zone and FWBs

Chase Amante

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Chase Amante's picture

unhappy relationship
Friend zones, friends with benefits, sexless marriages – many relationships are lopsided and unhappy. Why do these relationships exist (and how do you avoid them)?

In dating, there is one truth above all, and that is that men want a few things from women, and women want a few things from men, and not all those things overlap.

The result of this failure to overlap is sometimes you have a woman who is good at getting what she wants without giving the men she gets it from everything (or anything) they want. Likewise, you sometimes have a man who is good at getting what he wants without giving the women he gets it from everything (or anything) they want.

This mismatch is the root of all the most unhappy relationships with the most broken dynamics you see in dating. The friend zone, where a man who wants intimacy with a woman is exiled to her sexless borderlands without it. Friends with benefits, which some women are fine with for some time, but most women eventually go at least a little crazy in. Disrespectful and/or sexless long-term relationships or marriages, where the man is treated as a second-class partner. And neglectful and/or domineering long-term relationships or marriages, where the woman is treated as a second-class partner.

The Zen area of dating, of course, are setups where both partners get what they want: where the woman gets everything she desires, and the man gets everything he desires.

But not every coupling will be this way. Most won’t.

Instead, most fall somewhere into that overlap zone – for a very simple reason.

Comments

SZ's picture

I'm the same way with females too Chase, if I'm not having sex, there's no point for us to be friends or anything, unless she just happens to be that cool, but I'm not being that shoulder you cry on.

Most would say we're sex hungry and try to shame us, and tell us women are more than sex, not saying they aren't, but most women want men to waste their time.

Is it OK to think this way with how everyone is in the world? Most would call us immature because we love sex instead of settling down trying to build with a woman.

I can say that I'll be in the game for a long time, I just can't think of settling down. It's not that I'm like that little kid that says screw settling down, I just want to enjoy my youth, my vigor, I want to change my life around. I'm not like these people on the conventional path to life who settle down at 22. I have to make up lost time for everything, from women to money, plus I am still young.

I do feel bad tho, I just feel bad on not having this pan out sooner, I didn't want to be a late bloomer, but it is what It is, and I love women, I want to make love to so many women I can't think of settle down for another 10 years.

Hope this isn't a bad way of thinking about my future, but this is what I want.

Author
Chase Amante's picture

SZ-

I'm the same way with females too Chase, if I'm not having sex, there's no point for us to be friends or anything, unless she just happens to be that cool, but I'm not being that shoulder you cry on.

Yes, this is just normal, healthy male thinking toward women.

A platonic woman friend is not going to help you advance in your career. She's unlikely to be much help to you getting laid or meeting a girlfriend. And she will compete for your time, attention, and affections with every other potential woman you could devote time to. Female friends are worth having if you need to get more familiar with certain types of women and can't date them yet for some reason. Or if you meet a woman with really exceptional value in some category or other. Otherwise, there's little to gain for a man in being just friends with women.

Most would call us immature because we love sex instead of settling down trying to build with a woman.

Wait, are we talking about friends vs. lovers, or casual sex vs. commitment? Two different things.

Men get called 'immature' past a certain age if they haven't married and are still focused on lots of casual sex. That's because in general people view individuals going through a maturation process of "young people >> lots of random sex, hooking up, very emotional early relationships" to "older people >> less random sex, starting to search for more meaningful relationships, more experienced" to "older still >> getting married, starting a family." Since the purpose of sex is reproduction, this is actually a pretty normal/natural view of sexual maturity. From this perspective, someone who is going through a young person sexual stage at an older point of life seems 'immature'.

The labels don't really matter though. Some guys are late bloomers, like you are; some guys see their stations in life improve dramatically, which kind of kicks off a whole new evaluation period (suddenly theyr'e getting hotter/better girls than before, so it's back to reevaluation mode). Some guys are highly hedonistic, etc.

You should do what you can to get out of situations where people are labeling you in any negative way. Or if you can't get out of those situations, you should try to keep silent about your personal life so you aren't getting judged and labeled.

Hope this isn't a bad way of thinking about my future, but this is what I want.

It is 100% natural.

Chase

Papov's picture

This is great high quality content. I'm with a girl right now I was never sure of and did not want to enter into a relationship with despite her begging for it for a long long time. I got together with her because I wanted to make sure I had the sex from her once I got back from my study abroad (limited amount of options). Also, we had been FWB:s for about 2 years prior to that. She knows she is not good enough for me and this tears her down inside and I know that I am too good for her, which tears me down aswell because I think I could be happier with an even more attractive/funnier girl than her. It is really not a good thing. Being a little bit of FWB:s is fine for a while, while dating. But you should be able to make up your mind within a certain amount of time.

I was probably to afraid of the friend zone issues I once had that I decided to go to the other extreme. Using women for sex and not giving them any commitment at all makes you feel powerful but also shitty since you know you will not give them what they want.

Problem is I do not want to give women any commitment prior to sex, to me that just instinctively feels wrong. I would not enter a relationship without first testing if you have sexual chemistry. Question is how and when you decide to give her what she wants and how you resist not manipulating her to just have sex with you. It is not easy to let go of power.

Author
Chase Amante's picture

Papov-

Yes, those relationships can eat you up a bit. And there is always the risk you end up settling with the girl you don't think you'll settle with now, because it gets comfortable enough, long enough, and there aren't so many options around.

You should not be giving commitment prior to sex, so you are doing fine here. As far as giving her what she wants... you should know going in roughly what you think you want out of a girl. If it's a more serious relationship, I suggest you start loosening the reins a bit 2-4 months in and gradually let her have more of your time, do more things with her, etc. Somewhere after 6 months (maybe much longer... depends on how fast things are moving) you progress toward letting her meet your friends, you meeting her friends, etc. Before then you stick to the 'secret lover' gameplan. Those are the timetables I like and recommend, in any event.

As for not manipulating her just for sex... don't hide your intentions. Set proper expectations and don't betray them by behaving like more of a boyfriend than you are. If your words and actions match, she won't have any false ideas about you.

Chase

Mario's picture

Good article chase , you can easily get a pH.D in psychology, counseling and philosophy with the content you make.

Anyway I'm somewhat new to pick up and started from the girlschase boards , but I can't register on it , I've tried different things but it ends up saying;

"Please note that you will need to enter a valid e-mail address before your account is activated. You will receive an e-mail at the address you provide that contains an account activation link"

The thing is my email is valid and I tried 2 other email addresses.
Can a programming problem?

Anyway thank you for all the great content.

There were also problems posting this comment so sorry if there are several of the same message.

Author
Chase Amante's picture

Mario-

Hmm. Well, I just tried registering for you with the email address you submitted along with this comment, and registration went through fine.

Not sure what issue you were encountering. Sounds like an email address input issue - an extra space in the email, missing period, etc.

Anyway, you should have received the activation email to your inbox. Password is the rest of your email address after "mario" (you can change this once logged in, or reset your password).

Chase

CG46's picture

This post was great, and resonated with me in so many ways. I just got out of long-term relationship with someone whose needs I couldn't satisfy. I loved her, I respected her, I learned a lot from her, and she was "good enough" for me in every way, but she needed a lot more affection and time from me than I was willing to give due to my intense focus on my career. She was a sex and relationship coach, so we talked through things and made our relationship last a lot longer than it would have otherwise, but that was ultimately what ended things.

Recently, I've been seeing a new girl with the exact opposite situation. She pursued me right after my relationship ended, and I didn't have any time to recover emotionally. She's a rebound for sure, and not a great choice for me when I think about it logically, and she doesn't hold a candle to my sex coach ex in bed… but she's just so hot, cool, and aloof that she drives me crazy. She doesn't want a relationship or anything more than to be FWB, and recently she hinted that she'd prefer just the friends part, and so I've found myself both chasing her and embarking on a journey of self-improvement, as you put it. She's even gotten me spending less time on my career and more on life outside of it, which my ex could never do.

I've recently been trying to snap myself out of whatever hex I've been under with little success, but I think this article holds many of the answers. Thanks for writing it, Chase.

Author
Chase Amante's picture

CG46-

Glad to hear it helped!

Sounds like the second girl was quite a bait-and-switch. I've dated a few girls who did that to men... chased the guy down themselves, got the guy, and then once they had him pulled way back and made the guy start to chase.

At least with the ones I've had, giving them excellent sex and affection while then alternately sometimes telling them "Yeah, we should totally be friends" and then if they confirm you want to do that letting them know "Actually there's not really much point for me in being friends with a girl. But if you're not happy we can always just quit seeing each other" tends to do the trick ;)

Chase

Dale's picture

In the past, I have been in several relationships where we both were hanging on waiting for the other. In some cases they wanted to me show my devotion and that I cherished them by making love to them; while I thought they had no interest in being my lover (it took years and a lot of learning for me to know this.) Breaking up was still good in each case, but I am sure there were better solutions.

Author
Chase Amante's picture

Dale-

Sounds like these were women you knew socially, where there was mutual interest, but you went years without getting together?

That is a not-uncommon snag with social circle flirtations. It progresses to a point where both parties are interested and would like something to happen. But you've each become such fixtures in each other's lives that it'd be weird for something to happen, and it threatens the established order of things you've built over time (i.e., that the two of you know each other socially, and remain platonic).

Often this compounded by neither party being completely honest about what he wants. Both parties being circumspect so as not to rock the boat too much, etc.

There are guys who get social circle down really well - it's not my specialty, but you can definitely figure out ways not to fall into these traps. Some of the more social circle oriented guys here (like Hector) could probably weigh in more. Although if it was me, I think the suggestion would be "always continue to flirt and always make invites (if you're interested in a gal)."

Chase

SZ's picture

Hey Chase, in case you haven't seen my response to you in the forums about the college thing, or you read this first here's my response and a link to the career I was planning to go for. I basically state that I tried stem and already failed beginner math courses as well as other courses, and if I keep dropping classes or failing I'll lose all of my grants, and would have to pay out of pocket.

https://www.girlschase.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=18776

https://www.bls.gov/ooh/media-and-communication/mobile/technical-writers...

Just wanted to let you know I do take your advice, and didn't want it to seem like I'm just doing the opposite of what you suggest.

Did have a few questions tho:

1. Did you literally mean that not having a job/ be unemployed when trying to date professional women is better than a low wage job? I ask because unless you have a ton of money saved how would you survive? Let alone have money for gas, food, dates, etc?

Unless you mean to say that instead or should we lie about our employment ?

2. Is the scenario the same for other women ? Or should we lie about where we work? What would we tell younger college wome, etc.?

3. When taking younger girls (18-21) on dates, is it expected for older men to pay ? Or do we treat them the same and not pay? I don't pay, and this will be the first time I would be dating girls more than a couple years younger than me. I know you said to take them for pizza and ice cream, it's cheap, but if it's better not to pay than pay let me know.

4. The girl from the gym, I honestly didn't want to get her, I mean if she said she wanted me I wouldn't say no, but I didn't want to ask her out. I did want to check her out because that gym has no good looking women at all, and it was refreshing. I'll proudly admit I was looking at her doing her exercises, I wasn't creepy and took very short quick glances. Like when I was done with a set, I would just walk around and if she happened to be in my vision I looked at her.

Is that bad? Are all women going to assume you're weak when you just wanna check them out ? I'm a man and she was attractive enough to look at, actually I was trying to see how she looked and how her body looked so I kept looking here and there, it was just entertainment on my part. Let me know what you think.

Thanks

Author
Chase Amante's picture

SZ-

If you come across as a professional guy who is in between professional careers, then yes, being unemployed makes you more dateable to professional women than working in a garage as a tech or picking up the town's recycling bins.

"How would you survive" - bit outside the scope of this site (I don't want to go into talking about budgeting and saving and income and income assistance - there are plenty of people far better at educating about these subjects than I am). A quick Google search should suffice.

I haven't been in the "work at a low status job, trying to figure out how to communicate that" situation, so my advice can only be speculative there. Instead, I refer you to this post:

How to Answer “What Do You Do?”, No Matter What You Do

When taking younger girls (18-21) on dates, is it expected for older men to pay ? Or do we treat them the same and not pay? I don't pay, and this will be the first time I would be dating girls more than a couple years younger than me. I know you said to take them for pizza and ice cream, it's cheap, but if it's better not to pay than pay let me know.

Differs by time, place, culture, how you framed things, how they framed things, etc.

What I suggest you do is take a bunch of girls on dates and test out paying vs. not paying to see how each performs.

Are all women going to assume you're weak when you just wanna check them out ?

If you just check them out, but don't get weird or nervous or whatever, then no.

Often she will just assume you aren't interested. Unelss you keep staring at her. In which case then maybe yes - you keep looking but don't try to sample the goods. Why not, you chicken? :)

Chase

Nightowl's picture

Hey Chase, I had sex with a married woman in a small party after we both got drunk. She texted me the next day asking me what happened and saying that she didnt remember. She seemed cool about it, just telling me how she was trying to get over the hangover. We never texted each other after that day, and its been a few months since this incident happened. I looked her up on facebook a few weeks later and one of her posts said, "theres no place id rather be than with my husband." Im pretty sure its over but I just want to know what went wrong. Is it because I underperformed in the sack, or did she just regret cheating altogether, or another reason I dont know of? Is there a way to bring her out again? Im sure she was planning on cheating at the party because her vagina and ass were freshly shaved when I saw them.

Hope to read your response soon, thanks.

Author
Chase Amante's picture

Nightowl-

Sounds like a one-night stand.

She's already married, so probably not looking for a husband. Since she's got one already.

Sounds like she just likes to get drunk and hook up.

That said, a woman saying she loves her husband on Facebook while having drunken hookups at parties without him doesn't mean a whole lot of anything. Facebook is a tool for social posturing, not some place where people post ultimate truth.

Chase

SZ's picture

Hey Chase,

1. I was thinking about acting and modeling and I remember you saying cali was harder for women I think? I knew it was San Diego you so as you lived, but I don't know if it was LA too.

Would that ruin my chances to get very good with women because of the competition and my low skill set, plus lower counts of single women ? (I think you said this, correct me if I'm wrong)

I really want to get better with women before moving to a place where it's extremely hard.

2. I remember one of the questions I asked that got deleted.

It was about occupation when you're an older man at 33 or 34.

I asked on the forums and was told that as long as a women knows you're on the path to sled improvement that it won't matter what age you are, you can still get women as long as she sees you trying to progress in life.

But I remember your article about the best scenarios for an older man would be to have a business, retire , or be very high up where you work.

That's all that I knew for that, I didn't know exactly were off limits for men who didn't have those things by that age.

What kind of women can men get who are past those ages that you said that are still working on themselves ? Regular service women, not very attractive women, old wome, no women ? Can they even get hot young girls?

When you mentioned a man should have such n such by an age, we're you saying that you can get all women if you have those things by that age? Like professional women ? I don't think you meant that a man who doesn't have his own business, retired, or very high up by 34 can't get any younger women, maybe that meant professional women? I'd like clarification tho.

Also how do you feel about the forum responses about still sleeping with attractive women no matter what age, but showing you are on the path to success.

3. When I hear people sleeping with a lot of women during a summer or a certain amount of months, I think like how the hell cam someone find the time to do that ?

So I'm guessing in my head that sudection is a long game and sleeping with many women can't be done with men who work full time jobs.

In my head seduction feels like a long process and you'd have to have super free time to sleep with dozens of girls in a few months. But maybe it doesn't take that long to sleep with many ? ( just talking in general, not me)

I'm just going off what I heard from someone, but basically in my head it feels like seduction is a long drawn out process that takes time, maybe it's not tho, maybe sleeping with a lot of women can be done in a few months? I just don't know how people have the time or move so fast.

I hear stories about men sleeping with 55 women in 3 months or something, I'm like where do they find the time for all of this ? Are they fuckin women everyday ? There's 52 weeks in a year wtf. Maybe they just do a lot of one night stands or something.

Author
Chase Amante's picture

SZ-

You mean 'Man Diego'?

All of California has more men than women. And the men have better fundamentals across the board - they are better dressed, have bigger muscles, cooler hairstyles, are just cooler guys in general than what you find the rest of the country. Better game, too.

That said, the girls are also the hottest in the U.S. in Cali too. You take the good with the bad.

You're probably better off learning to get women where you are first, and moving to California when you're ready to take on the varsity leagues.

What kind of women can men get who are past those ages that you said that are still working on themselves ? Regular service women, not very attractive women, old wome, no women ? Can they even get hot young girls?

Think about it like this.

If a guy has incredible fundamentals but is a little lost and doesn't have his money together at that age, he can still get laid at least sometimes with pretty attractive younger women. He may not have an easy go of it, but he's got chances.

If he's a complete bum, with crap fundamentals and crap life prospects, then yeah, he's going to have a hard time getting even middling women in his own age range.

Also how do you feel about the forum responses about still sleeping with attractive women no matter what age, but showing you are on the path to success.

Don't remember seeing that, you'd have to link me to it.

So I'm guessing in my head that sudection is a long game and sleeping with many women can't be done with men who work full time jobs.

In my head seduction feels like a long process and you'd have to have super free time to sleep with dozens of girls in a few months. But maybe it doesn't take that long to sleep with many ? ( just talking in general, not me)

Once you are very skilled at picking up, you can pick up women quick. When you are a highly skilled dude and you go on a run, you specifically screen for women who'll be easy to pick up, and screen out ones who won't. This makes everything happen a lot faster and easier.

Even still, yeah, it takes large time commitments. Usually when a guy is on a run it will be during a stretch where either he does not have work / other full time commitments, or his job itself puts him in constant contact with eligible bachelorettes (e.g., lifeguard, nightlife industry insider, etc.).

Guys without jobs like this almost always have their high count runs while they are between jobs, on sabbaticals, and other such away-from-work scenarios. You need time, and you need mental focus.

Chase

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