Ride into the Friend Zone

I live life dangerously complacent here in the friend zone.

Some of you might know what I’m talking about, and I say cheers to you because not everyone can live this borderline-exciting lifestyle. It’s filled with surprises around every corner and behind every door you open for your friend.

Those of you who don’t understand what I’m talking about might be wondering, “What is the ‘friend zone’? And why does it remind me of the theme song to Top Gun?” That’s because they go hand in hand with each other.

Come on, pal. Rev up your engine. I’ll take you right into the friend zone. It’s a little-known rumor — which I’m starting right now — that Kenny Loggins’ 1986 hit song “Danger Zone” was not written for adrenaline junkies, but about a mediocre existence between indifference and love. All of the signs are there, and I’ll stretch this convoluted metaphor until you feel as uncomfortable as being told, “I fell in love with our friendship.”

Do you ever feel like you’re “out along the edges” of a relationship? Well, as Loggins said, “You’ll never know what you can do until you get it up as high as you can go.”
By “it,” he means disappointed expectations.

There are many exciting benefits of riding the highway to the friend zone that Loggins proposes in his song. For example: “Listening to her howlin’ roar” (of laughter at your misread advances) and how she’ll “be beggin’ you to touch and go (in a respectable fashion).”

Many successful people have lived their entire lives in the friend zone. These include: Severus Snape, Doug Funny, Anderson Cooper and former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. This is not a strictly male phenomenon. The most famous women on the highway to the friend zone are Oprah Winfrey, Helga Pataki and Lucy van Pelt. All of them “burned to be further on the edge” of a bottle of cheap whisky and a pack of cigarettes. 

Is it a sad life? Is it sad to go lingerie shopping with someone without the glory of seeing it in real life? The whole goal of the friend zone is the prospect of “spreading out her wings tonight” in a painfully consensual back-massage — maybe with some scented candles to set the mood right.

Sometimes the friend zone sneaks up on you like the wicked guitar solo in Danger Zone. They say once you’re in the friend zone, there’s only one way out, and that’s in a body bag of emotion. You’ll never want to leave because you’ll never want to escape the high-strung security of a relationship unfulfilled.

In the end, you’ll have two options: Ruin everything by making a move or sit anxiously in the comfortable silence of the friend zone. Some of you claim this is all an unhealthy level of rationalizing, but I doubt you’ve ever been in the zone.

At least it’s better than being alone, right?

­— nicjacob@indiana.edu