A Topical Post about the Friend Zone.

Say WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT? Blogging about something I think about a topic? What am I relevant?

So about a week or so ago, my friend posted this picture on Facebook. (Here is her blog. She's awesome and cool and awesome so go read her blog. http://itsmelissak.blogspot.com/ )
And here is the picture: 

I personally hate this photo and think it's false and stupid and tacky and I hate it. So I shall explain my position on it and maybe it changes your view, maybe it doesn't. Either way I hope you find what I say entertaining and enlightening. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaandgo (Keep in mind, this is not an essay, and even if it was it would have no organization of thought because I have no organization of thought. So you probably won't follow the logic. But I promise it'll come together in the end in my head.)

So here is why I disagree with it. I would venture to say that between 90-95% of the time, it is the guy complaining about being in the "friend zone". It does happen to girls, but I'm speaking strictly from a male perspective because between 90-95% of the time I am male, so I can only go based on my own thought process. But here's how I figure it. I have been in the friend zone by people before. I have also broken out of the friend zone after several years. However, that did work and kinda made a friendship rocky. I have also been turned down by a date by girls without reason. Perhaps these are exceptions to the rules though?

Well here's the biggest problem that I have with this picture. Barney Stinson would never ask a girl out on a date. They'd ask him on a date. I mean, he's Barney Stinson. He'd lie to you to make you ask him on a date. Cheeky little guy.

And my other biggest problem with this picture is that the reason guys complain about the friendzone are because they finally work up the courage to ask a girl on a date, or even confess how they feel, and the girl turns him down. Something that girls don't understand is that asking you girls out on dates is scary. It doesn't matter if we've known you a while, or if we're just meeting you, asking you on a date is terrifying. Asking you on a date makes us vulnerable, a feeling we aren't comfortable with. That's why we punch each other, because that's super tough and makes us feel invulnerable. We feel tougher and manlier when we aren't vulnerable. So asking girls on dates and making our emotions known is tough for us.

Also, something you ladies should know, is that there is no such thing as going on a date as "just friends", at least not for guys. We say we're going as "just friends" to try to take some of the edge off of one of us, Because for whatever reason, if we've ever liked you, we still like you. We can't just turn it off, box it up, and put it in an attic to find years later and be like "wow, that was dumb." Our crushes are like tattoos, we wear them openly, try to get rid of them once we realize how stupid they are, then the second somebody brings up what a good idea it was you go get it redone darker and thicker than it was before. Okay, not the best analogy, but it got the point across. Probably.

Another problem that I have with this picture is that it tries to take the blame off of the girls. If you are made aware that you have friend zoned somebody, then that means you now have a situation where you have somebody you only consider a friend who has finally mustered the courage to confess their feelings for you. Should they have asked you on a date sooner? Certainly. But why didn't they? Perhaps because you had a boyfriend? Perhaps because they were intimidated by you and were too scared to ask you out? Perhaps you were sitting around waiting for some other dude to ask you out, and putting this other dude all up in our grill whenever we tried to talk to you. Personally, I think all three are valid reasons why not to ask a girl. But even if you rule out the middle one as stupid (which, admittedly, it probably is. But I've totally been that guy too scared to ask a girl out. I still am that guy.) But the other two are other valid candidates for why I wouldn't have asked you out on a date, and then when I tell you how I feel you're like "Oh, well, I totally think you're awesome, but you're just a friend, so if you don't mind I'm gonna pee on your feelings by continuing to tell you about how badly [generic douche name] treats me. But he's better looking than you so I'll just throw you in the friend zone that we girls invent to make ourselves feel better and to avoid telling the less attractive guys we don't find them attractive now, in the past, and we never will."

Well, that escalated quickly. Probably some emotions I haven't dealt with in there somewhere. But that's cool, because I'm just gonna learn to reproduce asexually. Current task, learning how budding works.

BUT IN ANY CASE: LAWYERED.

In conclusion, I counter argue that this picture only applies to a very few situations, where while the guy was stupid, the girl is even more stupid for making up this friend zone to keep people in in the first place. And in the other case, it is not the guy's fault at all, because the girl just put him there to cover up her real feelings.

A blend of two drafts

The past few days I've sat down to blog, write, or do something other than watch all of How I Met Your Mother but have had little to no success. So I'm gonna combine the last two into a strange blog post, because they're the ones that I've wanted to talk about but just needed to focus my thoughts on them a bit.

The first was about a strange occurance that happened to me on Saturday. To earn some extra money I've been refereeing football, as I have in years past. I don't absolutely love football, nor am I a spectacular referee, but the money is there and it gets me out of the house. This is how I've always viewed this job in the three years that I've done it, but now it's coming to haunt me.
On Saturday I went out in the blazing hot sun of Boron California. Where is Boron? It's about an hour's drive from my very hot home of Lancaster into the even hotter Boron. Imagine that if someone from Hell had a winter home, but needed it to still be over 100 degrees all the time. That's Boron. Boron is the kind of place you step out into and sweat in the shade.
So that gives you an idea of the conditions. Now I'll tell you what happened. And I'll make it so even football fans will have an idea. I was on the sidelines working the chains (the things that measure the ten yards per 4 downs, as well as mark how far you've gone and how far you have to go). The play came my way out wide, and this little 6 or 7 year old kid came my way. A kid grabbed the kid by the ankles and he began to go down, and as he was another kid came flying towards the other kid. The kid on defense realized the other kid was going down, and went to the ground instead of towards the kid. They met halfway in the middle, and the runner goes down. As I normally do, I ran out to get the ball and indicate the play was over. As I did, I saw something awful. But worst, I heard something awful. If you've ever heard a 7 year old break a bone, you know what I'm talking about. It wasn't the sound of the bone breaking that I heard, but the sound of the pain as it registered in the kid's head. The first look of horror as he realized the odd angle his forearm was now taking from his elbow. His high pitched yelps still haunt me as I try to relive this. It was awful to see this kid in so much pain. A seven year old kid. It was one of the hardest things I've had to deal with. I didn't call anything against the kid who went to the ground, despite the calls for leading with the helmet, a late hit, or any other number of rules with which I'm vaguely familiar. My White hate (the dude in charge) assured my not calling anything was the right call, but it didn't make me feel any better. A kid, a seven year old kid, broke his arm and I watched it happen. I couldn't do anything, and I pissed off a bunch of people by not throwing a stupid yellow rag. I still feel awful, and it's hard for me to live it down. I just thought I'd catch you guys up on this.


The second thing that I wanted to write about was first impressions. I don't know why I wanted to write about this, but I did. It was just something that had been on my mind lately. Probably because I'm gonna be trying to make a good impression on people for the next two years. If I don't, then I have no hope of converting them. I mean, sure, there are other factors, but a good first impression certainly helps move this process along.

Now, I don't think that I make a good first impression. I pride myself on always being me. However, "me" has a very big personality. I mean, maybe it's not such a bad thing, but I realize sometimes I can be a bit  much, especially at first. There will be times when my friends bring new people around and they're like "Uh, so that Tommy kid, he was kidding about (insert probably inappropriate comment) right?" I don't do it on purpose, I just don't pull my punches because I'm around new people. I am who I am, and if people can deal with it, great! If not, then I'd rather know up front than waste your time and mine. I mean, I think I'm pleasant to be around. I think I'm fun and I can be interesting to keep around, but I'm certainly not for everybody, and I get that and certainly appreciate that. But now I have to worry about that. I have to worry about making a good first impression to these random people who I am converting to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I've found a lot of happiness with the gospel, and I want to share that with others. But what if my personality is too much for people, even there? What do I do there? I don't want to lose myself on my mission, but I don't want to scare people away because of who I am either.

Anyway, this is what makes me not sleep at night. I guess I just worry too much. I hoped you enjoy reading! I'll try to post more regularly.