This week I was sick (no, not that, but I will spare you the gory details – which is a courtesy I have not afforded anyone who’s WhatsApped me in the past six days). So in my bored, vulnerable state, mourning this sorry twist in my Hot Girl Summer, I thought I might watch Love Island for the first time. Surely that would lift my spirits! Alas, it only made me feel worse.
The moment that turned my stomach (further) then? A paint-by-numbers sunburnt hunk, whom I’m informed is called ‘Hugo’, having a heartless-to-heart with the other half of his ‘friendship couple’, Sharon. Admittedly, I am not up to speed with the nuances of this not-to-be romance but my sources and, for that matter, my eyes, inform me that she was perhaps keen to ‘test the waters’ with him. All hope, it seems, was lost with the arrival of a ‘gorgeous piece of meat’ (Faye’s words) – 28-year-old hair extension technician from Hertfordshire, AJ, whom he set about wooing with a list of places he’s visited on, I guess, his gap year like some sort of Marco Polo in ripped jeans with an STA Travel card.
‘I think it’s a bit peak for me that you friend zoned me in the first 30 minutes of meeting me,’ said Sharon. ‘If I’m completely honest with you I can’t see there being anything romantic between you and me just because I see you as like a little sister in here now,’ said Hugo. ‘I’ll say it straight to you now, I don’t see you in that way and I don’t think I ever could’.
Ever could? Love Island 2021 has been on TV for less than three weeks. I am quick to learn that things move fast in The Villa (I tuned in to see two star-crossed lovers being tearfully ripped apart by some arbitrary plot-twist. ‘How long have they been together?’ I asked my friend. ‘One day,’ she replied – an answer which I found hilarious and, as an unapologetic romantic, deeply relatable in equal measure) but nevertheless, three weeks seems premature to dismiss any possibility of romance with someone - and counting them out on the grounds of friendship, a silly reason to give.
But let’s get on Love Island time and say, 'OK fine, three weeks, one day, five minutes, sure' – this interaction still made me feel deeply uncomfortable primarily because I find the very notion of ‘friend zoning’ hurtful, ridiculous and, to engage in Love Island parlance ‘a bit peak’ too. I have been told once in my life that I had been put ‘firmly in the friend zone’. That’s an exact quote, I know because it was immediately carved into my mind as one of the meanest, silliest, most juvenile and arrogant things anyone has said to me, not least because it made huge assumptions about what I wanted (we don’t all race home at night to update our wedding Pinterest boards) .
'Friend zoning' is blind to the idea that someone who is your friend can also be your lover.
In my experience it tends to be men who employ ‘friend zoning’ as an excuse (although, it should be noted, Hugo did not actually use the words 'friend zone', Sharon did). My not-professional opinion is that they play that as a Get Out of Jail Free card when they want to let you down but don’t have the guts to say ‘I’m just not that into you’ and the desperation to appear as an eternal Good Guy (for the record, I don’t know if Hugo is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ but I imagine like most human beings he is probably quite lovely and a bit of both. I don't have a problem with him, it's with the concept of 'friend zoning').
I think the big mistake about 'friend zoning' is the gulf between intention and outcome: it is employed as a 'kind' form of rejection, but feels like a bewildering reason to give. Rejection sucks, it hurts like nothing else, but everybody has the right to reject (to men, I have news, we are tougher than you think - give it to us straight). That’s partly why I read ‘friend zoning’ as a mild, often unintentional form of gaslighting: we tussle with it and find it hard to accept, because it is a ridiculous reason to dismiss someone romantically. I know many couples who are horny as hell for one another but also the greatest of mates; it’s the ones who have nothing to talk about I worry for.
'Friend zoning’ someone also seems to me an utterly redundant concept and blind to the idea that someone who is your friend can also be your lover. It’s a thick over-simplification of the nuances and wild, beautiful messiness of human relationships and plays into the idea that they should, or can, exist in rigid binaries. Relationships evolve and adapt. I have good pals who I’ve slept with and Great Loves who’ve dissolved into strangers; colleagues who are also best friends, and best friends who have become more like family. Furthermore, would you really want a relationship built on anything less than a rock-solid friendship? I wouldn’t. Most likely you wouldn’t either: a recent study carried out by the department of psychology at the University of Victoria, Canada revealed two-thirds of couples started out as friends. Wham-bam, tummy-spinning, cloud-floating first-sight love is deliciously intoxicating, but it is not the only beginning to a story. Love (and lust) can also be a slow-burn, growing out of laughter, kindness, shared values and comfort - but, to be fair, each season of Love Island would need to be on for three years to see relationships like that come to fruition.
The real offence I take at ‘friend zoning’ is that it frames friendship as the consolation prize to the main event (the subtext is: 'I just see you as a friend'). Not on my watch. I wrote for Grazia earlier this year about what I perceive to be the undeniable, epic romance of friendships: the fact that they are not defined by blood, laws or contracts and that all we need to make them function and flourish is a mutual desire to make them work. I will always, always, consider real deal friendship to be one of the most beautiful, heart-swelling things someone can be lucky enough to experience. Anyone can go an app (or a reality TV show) and get laid, not everyone gets true friendship. I guess it’s all about priorities. As for the man who ‘friend zoned’ me? In hindsight I think he was as unworthy of being my friend as he was of going to bed with me.
So back to Sharon, whom I wish I could scoop up and give a huge hug. I hope she finds romance of course (I know what it’s like to be the Only Single One), but equally I hope she experiences great ride-or-die friendships. And I really, really hope, if not on Love Island she one day finds both in the same package. Cut to her last night: ‘I really don’t understand men’. Sharon, I am guessing I have at least a decade on you, but neither do I.