Hey, Vsauce. Michael here. And today we're going to talk about the science
of the friend zone. You know, the experience
of liking someone and then finding out that they would rather just be friends
with you. Why does it happen? If there's
hope of escaping the friend zone, how can it be done?
And, more importantly, should you?
The term "friend zone" was popularized by the TV show
Friends on November 3, 1994.
In Episode 7 of the first season,
Joey tells Ross that Rachel likes him,
but will never like like him.
Ross is in the friend zone. Now, of course,
everything turned out fine for Ross, but we're getting ahead of ourselves.
Back when I calculated how much money love is worth
I discussed the feeling of having a crush on someone.
Those emotions, the nervousness, the excitement have a name.
What you feel when you have a crush on somebody is known
as limerence. It's exciting to feel butterflies in your stomach whenever
you're around somebody
and those butterflies may be caused by the release
of adrenaline, which pulls blood away from things like your stomach
and toward the muscles, where it may be better used. Of course,
this can cause the stomach to shut down a bit, become upset.
It may also explain why people have a reduced appetite
when they feel love sick. Now, whether you are
male, female, gay, straight,
everybody can be friend-zoned. And, biologically speaking,
the route of the friend zone may be
Bateman's Principle. Named after
Angus Bateman, the principle states that whenever a species,
like us humans, contains two different sexes,
each with dissimilar sex cells, for instance,
sperm and egg, inevitably one sex will have to commit more resources to the
production
of offspring. In mammals this is especially true.
A female can have only a limited number of offspring,
whereas a male can have a virtually
unlimited number. This causes a biological tendency for
one sex to be competitive and for the other
to be choosy. The newest episode of
Earth Touch's "Wild Sex" goes into a lot more detail about this,
so be sure to check it out. But today,
regardless of whether or not reproduction is the goal,
the roles of pursuer and pursued
have extended beyond the Bateman principle and are now quite
hard-wired into our culture. Because not every pursuer can win
and because not every pursuer is a terrible jerk,
some friend-zoning in is inevitable.
It's disappointing when it happens to you and it's easy to rely on the
"nice guys finish last" excuse,
but so far research hasn't found much
evidence for it. What's more likely is that you have
idealized the other person as a potential mate,
but a neutral observer could tell you that in reality
the two of you don't have as much in common as you think.
This is the argument put forward by Jenna Marbles
in her fantastic video. It's called homogamy.
We select our mates based on how similar they are to our own personalities,
interests and ideals for the future. And so when someone is
friend-zoned, it's often not because they were too friendly or too much of a nice
guy,
instead, it's often just run-of-the-mill incompatibility.
But let's not rule out being
too friendly or too nice from every situation just yet.
Marshall Fine described the friend zone as a penalty box that you're sent to
when your only crime is not being
buff or unobtainable enough.
Buffness falls into homogamy. It's about what someone else's interests are and
what they want from a mate.
But what fascinates me is the part about being
unobtainable. Why would being available
and present and friendly make you less attractive?
And why would being kind of a jerk, too cool,
aloof or hard to get make you
more attractive? Well, Robert Cialdini calls this
the scarcity principle. We desire things that are difficult to obtain,
because we don't like to have our freedom limited
and we act before it can be. This happens all the time in business
and it's equally true when it comes to attraction.
Using the scarcity effect yourself
is often cited as a possible escape route from the friend zone.
Make yourself less available and see if your crush
responds, or try using
the Ben Franklin effect. Benjamin Franklin wrote about how he was able to
form
relationships with other people by asking
them to do things for him.
The theory is that by doing favors for you cognitive dissonance occurs in the
person's mind.
Why would they be doing favors for you unless they
liked you? Now, it's no guarantee that you'll become more than friends but just
by simply becoming
friends, you'll be doing something quite special,
because today, we all, on average have
fewer friends, fewer close individuals we can confide in
than we did decades ago. And we hang out with those friends less
than we did before. This phenomenon was explored famously by Robert Putnam
in "Bowling Alone." For instance, from 1965 to 1995,
the number of minutes people of all ages reported spending per day
with informal socializing, hanging out with friends,
going to parties, hanging out at bars or having informal conversations
fell from 85 minutes
to just 57. In about the same time frame,
the number of picnics held fell 60 percent.
And the number of times on average we entertain friends at home
fell from 14 to 15 times a year
to a mere 8.
We spend more time than we used to on entertainment,
sleep, exercise and transportation.
Not bad things, but since the middle of the 20th century,
the two activities that many of us still do that have decreased the most
are attending worship service and hanging out
with friends. We're also now spending time on this new thing
called the Internet. It's a great tool for communication and social networks,
but like T. S. Eliot said of the telephone before it,
the Internet may simply allow us to speak to more people
than ever before, but be more lonely
doing it. Social networks have somewhat diluted
the power of the word friend. But way before MySpace or Facebook,
the word friend was on the way out. So much so that we had to start using a new
word,
'best friend.' Robert Wuthnow cautions that
on the Internet what feels social
may be less of a way for us to focus on actual
interpersonal relationships, and instead more of a
stage for us to focus on ourselves
in the presence of other people. To be sure,
virtual communities are often more equal,
because we know less information about our discussion partners, like age,
race or gender. But what we gain from
anonymity often comes at the cost of an
evening out of interests and values.
I can retreat from real-world conversations
and hide within niche communities online, where everyone
thinks like me and generally shares my worldview.
It's called cyberbalkanization.
It's when online interactions provide a lazy
environment, free from actual discussion and outside views.
Whereas the real world often forces us to deal with the greater diversity
of interests and values. Now, because we choose mates that are
so similar to ourselves, this vital exposure to new,
honest ideas often has to come from
friends - a resource that is diminishing
in our society. And so, although it's disappointing
to be friend-zoned, in a way it might be
where that other person, and all of us,
actually need you the most.
And as always,
thanks for watching.