The Infamous Just Friends™ Speech.
It generally goes a bit like this:YOU: I like spending time with you…
THEM: I like spending time with you…
YOU: I have so much fun when we are together…
THEM: Me, too.
YOU: What was it wanted to tell me?
THEM: You're so great and I really enjoy our time together, but I think we should be just friends….
YOU: [mouth open, jaw dropped, tears forming in your left cornea] ….
Need I say more? (It wouldn't be much of a story if I ended it there, so the show must go on…)
These four words can strike a person temporarily sterile. Listen to those words. The words sound so friggin' innocent but can damage a person's psyche; corrupt their soul (you know
until the next person comes along, of course).
until the next person comes along, of course).
In reality, those words are a wasteland of profanity. That terminology comes to mean the equivalent of this: you are a complete and utter waste of time, energy and oxygen – I'd rather watch reruns on the Weather Channel than date you. It is the consummate get-out-of-jail free card; the rejection made simple (coincides with the whole dreaded "it's not you, it's me" theory). The potential for any type of romantic involvement between the two of you has been blown to smithereens (the dream is truly deferred and deceased).
Come on now, I know it's not just me. Think back here. Have you ever thought you were talking to someone but found the other person thought you all were "just cool"? I have. It is neither the business nor the bee's knees.
Sadly, after being handed the dreaded Let's Just Be Friends™ speech, you're obligated to then become a willing friend to the other party.
Hell naw, I don't want be your damn friend!
As a man, I am insulted by this. It's almost as if you think that when I first met you – the thought of friendship was dancing around in my head; as if I was anxiously awaiting the opportunity to talk to you until the wee hours of the night for no other reason than to hear you talk mess about your ex and to help you decide on that fly outfit to wear to your next company function. [In reality, I'm confuzzled as all get out! I spent my hard-earned money on you, I gave up going out with my crew to talk to you on the phone and I even gave you a special ring tone in my phone! Them ring tones are expensive as hell; does that sound like a friend to you?!!!]
I, um-err-umm, have deviated, so let's get back on track.
Please understand the dumped are a bit pissed about the whole situation. You've already cast them off, made them feel like crap, and all that not-so-good stuff. Don't insult them by asking them to hang out with you and listen to stories about people you're dating (who are apparently better than them). By the time you even get to the word friend, they're zoned out trying to figure out how to tell their friends that THEY dumped YOU, or counting up all the money they wasted on you.
Even better is the cousin of let's be friends, the even more irritating you're so nice, but...
NOTHING good ever comes after the word "but." Why even try to soften it up? In addition to that, don't tell anyone they are nice. If they are so nice, what could possibly be so bad that it counters the effects of their niceness? Maybe it's like when you eat too ice cream and you get a brain freeze: you're so nice, you begin to give people headaches…
Guess what? They don't want to know. No one wants to know. My advice to anyone I've heard talking like this: keep that stuff to yourself. Unfortunately, people choose to keep talking after the word "but" and this is basically the part where you get the emotional and egotistical equivalent of a swift kick in the balls (or uterus).
If that doesn't hurt enough, peep this… because we're friends now - there isn't even an outlet to for them to even vent (you know you can't talk to your friends when they have pissed you off). Being that I'm a man, this sucks to no end. Unlike the opposite sex, we don't cry. We don't call our friends and have "Eff him, girl" parties.
We get mad.
Heated.
Pissed.
We're upset with the girl, at her momma, her group of scalawags she calls friends (basically, everyone without a penis – but don't worry, it all eventually subsides).
Back to my point… in the future, if you're not interested, let the person know ahead of time so that they can use their two-for-one coupon for Red Lobster on someone else that will enjoy their conversation, some of those delicious Cheddar Bay Biscuits and the prospect of full clothes hunching by the third date. It'll save all of us in the long run.
That's my time.
- Mr. Smart Guy
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12 ideas.:
Hell yeah! I've been tagged as a "just friend/nice guy" myself. I'm reminded of this one time in particular. This chick I'll call, Pretty Brown Round really had me going in the 8th grade. We were all hugged up on the class trip to Orlando, hanging out together, talking on the phone...I was really cakin' this chick and then she hit me with it like a Mike Tyson upper-cut. BOOM! "...you're really nice, BUT I just wanna be friends." That was after I found out she was dating this other dude.
But it's all good. I'm chillin' these days. Haven't really took a loss since. Well, that's not entirely true. Anyways, PBR and I didn't get along our entire freshman year in high school, but we later reconciled. We're cool now. I've been a witness to her friend zone toe-taggings of several other brothas. But not 'the kid'. Not again.
friendship is soo important and cool. i think people should avoid dating all together and just be friends.. no marriages..then no divorces..so what if the population dwindles.. thats was stem cell research is for.
@ Pimp Juice
Roger and Zapp made a song called "I Wanna Be Your Man", how many people out there are making songs about friends?
It's like getting second place in a competition; it's cool and all but hell, no one remembers the runner-up...
I took my L's (yes, plural) in HS and early on in college... I guess I was a bit naive and impressionable...
Now I am more upfront before I get too involved, time teaches major lessons....
LMAO @ the special ringtone.
If anyone understands, it's me. The self-proclaimed QUEEN OF RELATIONSHIPS THAT REALLY AREN'T.
Some of my favorites:
1 -- You are classy and deserve so much more. Let me get my self together before I fully commit to you. I want to graduate, save some money, blah blah blah. DAMN! After you do all that you will probably start feeling yourself and want some extra ass on the side.
2 -- I like you. I mean, I like you a lot. I mean, I'm falling for you. Let's slow down, because I, umm, don't want to get hurt. I mean, I've been hurt so much in the past. Get outta here! Bullshit!!!!
3 -- (After a few months of dating.) Could you see me as your husband? Because if you can't, then maybe we should stop dating. I mean, I'm not just trying to have fun. First of all, STOP LYING!!! If I proposed you're ass would run out the door.
So yes, CURIOUS GEORGE, I feel you on the "let's just be friends" breakups.
I hope you still enjoy your weekend babe...you're too much of a pimp not too... LOL
Ok, Jorge ... here's my take on it. some of the best female friends i've got started off as more than friends and for some reason (distance or lack of interest or the fact that when we hooked up one of us was technically un-conscious... whatever the reason) we just fell out of it and back to the friendship ways. i have to say i love havin close female friends that are actually attractive because i can get to know what girls are thinking from them. once a girl convinces herself that there's no chance me and her are going to be more than just buddies... they turn into somethin weird... somethin cool, they stop being worried about if their makeup looks right or if they wore the right shoes or if we'll laugh if they tell us what they think about themselves or why they can't find a good man... they become one of the fellas... with tits! ok that last one wasn't really appropriate but it's just quite nice to be able to hang out w/ a female and explain my woes with her and listen to her complain about her woes with her man. hanging on to these friendships is useful for me, i've got some friends that i've kept in touch with for years and years because there's no kinda awkwardness like 'dude, why is she callin me? doesn't she know i don't want her any more?' kinda business.
it's tru initially if it was someone you were feeling and she just put the clamps on it like that you'll be hurt, but if you go about it like 'aw that's cool... i didn't think we'd work out well any way... i'd probably start liking your sister in a few months and ask you two to do a semi-nude photo shoot on my futon after a few glasses of bacardi green apple and games of scrabble' then you'll be all good in a couple of days. so to those girls out there protecting themselves from all of us horny-toad dogs who look to get into not just your but your sister's draws also... i say let the friendships begin!
aww... i feel bad now... well, almost...
i've DEFINITELY used the "lets be friends" thing but i've never actually followed through on it...
why? because i figure if you aren't good enuff for me to want to date or be with, u sure as hell aren't good enough for me to want to "be friends with".
let's keep it real, y would u want to "just be friends" with someone you wouldn't want more with?
btw, sooo happy i found ur blog again!!!
@ ladebelle
Why even say let's be friends when you know that you don't have the slightest notion of doing that?
But I do feel you - sometimes it's better let someone down easy than to crush their dreams on the spot... and to keep it real, as a man, it's really hard to be just friends with your friends of the opposite sex but that's a blog for another day...
I'm glad you found me too!@
soooo...i'm just wondering would it be more proper to just stop returning phone calls and get too busy to spend time with them once you realized that it isn't going anywhere?
i'm just saying since the friend zone convo is obviously off limits.
i have a "friend" that will simply allow the dude to keep coming around pretending as if something is going to happen, after already deciding that nothing will happen for the dude...she never gives him the "friend speech" but she also never does more than enough to keep him hanging on in hopes of somthing more...that surely isn't reccomended is it?!?
Yeah - that's even worse than being rude from jump... false hope is never a good thing...
So I would have to say that I have never used the line before, but I was thinking it. Instead of saying it, I just started giving hints that I just wanted to be friends. I think that might be worse, because I wasnt upfront with them at all. But I didnt want to say it because I knew those words would sting!!!
I think that what happens is at first you might think there could be something, but then realize that there is nothing there.
Hey you can't be mad at a girl for trying to see if it could work! :)
Did you eventually have to let that person down or did they eventually go away?
This is absolutely brilliant! "Hell naw, I don't want to be your damn friend!" People waste so many hours of their lives just to hear those four words...I'd say you were reading my mind, but I don't know you and that would just sound plain creepy. Therefore, let's just settle for: I can relate to this.
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