The science behind the Friendzone - Your friend wants to bang you.

We live believing that things are as they always were, until we recall our mother's face as they read the letter that told them that we were going to get a phone.

A landline phone.

That thing, that goes attached to the wall. That rang when somebody wanted to sell you something, when your aunt called, and basically not a lot more.

Just like that, a couple of years later, new inventions apeared and we see them as if they always existed. Microwave ovens. Mobile phones. Man and Woman friendship.

Because of course, the way we relate with each other as humans are invented. At a point they didn't exist, then "poof!" there they are!. Lets set this grinding wheel rolling: The overdone argument about; Can men and Women be friends?

Interior design, we do not fear you!

I would've loved to be there to witness when they prepared the project presentation to ask for budget to investigate. Really. I imagine them sitting, munching a sandwich, showering their computers with bread crumbs until she interrupts: "Listen, Mario, I believe this could work. Instead of 'can men and women be friends' we should do something like 'Communication and cross-sex friendships across the life cycle'. You just don't worry".

And yes, it does exist. The issue, almost for sure, is that he is expecting that relationship to nucleate into a violent genital interaction with her.

The research:

The good thing about being able to troll like this is that I don't have to do the research they did. What was done, basically, is grab a bunch of opposite sex "friends" (a bunch, as in 88); sit them apart and ask: "OK, he/she is not listening now... You want to bang him/her, right?"

Because it is VERY interesting to try to unmask why does a social link that basically consisted on having children, derived in something divergent as: "She's Marian, we're friends since childhood and practice traditional lawn dance; but no, we are not an item". Then, people started arranging the variables and the first that they tried to unveil was, how much truth did this trivial debacle had. Crazy thing, is that the studies complement something men know already: Yes, we want to bang them, a bit. Well, statistically, a lot; yet there's two problems: Men believe they could possibly do so, and women don't even notice.

Results:

You look at the results and note that several men passed the test establishing a "yes", they wanted to bang her (around from 1 to 9, a 6 "I'd do her"), not only that, many were convinced that this feeling was mutual (SPOILER: Not always, my beta friend), it looks like we see things as we want to see them. Now, when the pretty, sexy, appealing and strong antipode of men had to reply, the results were the same, yet different. The bang score was slightly lower (4ish, under the same scale), and the interesting part is that they had a trend of believing that men were underestimating the relationship, they did not notice their male friends had interest in them. Because, of course, it is really normal for a man to go with you to shop shoes.

We don't only have issues understanding what WE have, we also suck at understanding what happens in the other's head; poor empathy. And since the reality is what the brain creates for us (we idealize too much), we chose the option where whatever happens in the other person's head, is just what happens in ours. (I've the feeling I'll have to re-edit this paragraph several times to make sense...)

At a point, people grows up and some even mature. After the 20 years old hype, peace arrives. As couple with a bit more age were evaluated, around 30+, they noticed that the amount of opposite sex friends dropped at both groups, men and women. Also, the level of "cravings" for the other leveled closer.

Levels or romantic attraction in opposite sex friends, declared by themselves in 20ish years old and 30ish years old individuals.

When the dust settled, as the hormones calmed, they went for the final test. Is it good to have "bangable" friends? Of course not, the least you like him/her, the better. Seriously. The volunteers established that the potential costs of having friends with a high sex appeal were way higher than the potential benefits. Yet, they have them... This research is full of surprises.

An unexpected (?) result:

The worst has yet to come, a horrid variable, one of those truths we love to deny all the time. What happens if your partner has a friend that results sexually attractive to you? It turns out that having friends like that have a negative impact in couple's relationships. Nobody noticed that if you stare at your wife's BFF's breasts the whole evening you may get a divorce? THANK YOU, WISCONSIN UNIVERSITY, I DIDN'T KNOW THAT!

Seriously, who wouldn't?

The Friendzone, is real?

We need to try to understand why this is the way it is (now, that such a phenomenon was measured somehow, with so many variables as human relationships). Around 10000 years ago, a huge majority of humankind was gatherer-nomad. In those groups, men and women relationships were pretty much based in the urge for reproduction and survival, to the point that there's few references in the ethnographic registry that could point to an intimate relationship with other means than passing on genetic material.

Today, we believe that we are "way above that level", even history suggests that non-reproductive male and female relationships are something exclusive of modern society.

We are bald apes, flooded with culture and SmartPhones. Trying harder than ever to dodge our instinct and biologic backpack loaded for tens of thousands of years with reproductive urges. The new environment model forces us to redirect those urges and understand that evolution will always work over a previous model, with the same traits, under a different context. Ever changing, always "under construction".

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