#RealDeal: How LOTR's put me in the "Friend Zone" & why it's awesome

#TalkNerdyToMeLover’s Dan Beil

Having nothing else to do on a Saturday night I found myself catching up on some of Jen’s older posts, specifically about her past dates and relationship. I guess I found myself doing this as I have been recently hanging out (yes…just hangin’) with a specimen of the female variety which I thought may lead to some type of relationship, which in the end didn’t (but more on this latter).

I’ve been single for about 3 years and while reading Jen’s posts I was thinking about if I was REALLY happy being a single, almost 30 year old. I’m straight, a 6 or 7 on a hotness scale, college educated, self-employed.

After thinking about it for a few minutes, the answer I came up with was a very strong YES!

I really thought my last SERIOUS relationship (the one 3-ish years ago) was ‘the one,’ though looking back we both made way too many mistakes for it ever to really work. Long story short, she left me, and for about a year my understanding of life simply checked-out, leaving me in a position of existential crisis and pain that only Princess Buttercup learning of Wesley’s ‘death’ could understand. Having pulled my head out of my ass after putting my life back together, I did the only reasonable and logical thing a man can do…I adopted a dog (Benedict)…he’s awesome by the way!

So now a year after having my heart ripped out of my chest Temple of Doom style, I am a proud dog owner, rather successfully freelancing as a front-end web developer, and not dating. This last part made me sad for a while…not dating?! What’s wrong with me?! To distract myself I dived head first into my work and taking care of Benedict (as a rescue he needed a lot of attention). This kept me very busy until my work load became more managed and Benedict progressed. Good…now it’s time to start dating again.

Like many of my friends I tried out the big dating web sites for a while. Having gone on a few ‘dates’ via an ‘online connection’ I soon realized this was not for me. Even though we had gotten all the bullshit small-talk out of the way online, this seemed to be all the two of us could regurgitate to each other (other than random situational shit which didn’t cut it for me). Well I gave it a try…

Maybe I didn’t write my profile well enough, maybe all the ‘good ones’ are already taken, who knows. This lead me to give blind / online dating the middle finger and I dived back into my work. This basically sums up year two since ‘the big break up.’

Year 3: Work is good, I have some free time, I kinda have my life together…generally things are good.

Just recently I randomly reconnected via FB with an old college acquaintance. She had been going out with one of my friends in college and we didn’t know each other all that well. Many years had passed so I figured she was fair game. I always thought she was gorgeous, probably out of my league, but hey why not give it a try!

Not dating for such a long time, I was kinda intimidated by the notion of hanging out with such an attractive woman. While chatting through FB I found out she was just as much of a nerd as me (hell, she was a mathlete in high school…no joke!). Obviously her nerdy-ness only served to add points to the hot-ness scale. To be fair she is more of a nerd while I am more of a geek, but hey we’re cut from the same cloth so give me a break.

Our first hang out in about 8 years was meeting up at a local dog park and playing with Benny. I was certainly trying to avoid THE FRIEND ZONE at all costs and thought I did pretty well. We went our different ways after an hour and proceeded to exchange texts over the next few days. The next time we got together we tried to catch a showing of The Hobbit but missed it and ended up see Django Unchained instead (to which we left the theater laughing at the fact the Tarantino must have been yelling ‘No no no no – we need more penises!’ Then debated if ‘peni’ should be an acceptable plural version of ‘penis’), later we set up a time for her to come over to my place for a ‘nerd date.’

This, being 2013, I imagined that everyone in the world has seen all of the LOTR’s but to my disbelief she had seen none of them (this of course I learned during our time talking about seeing The Hobbit)! BAM I’m in….I get least 3 more ‘dates’ / 9 more hours that I get to make a complete fool of myself in front of this girl.

The next week she arrives at my place to watch The Fellowship of The Rings and we start with a little conversation, which went surprisingly natural, non-flirtatious, and generally nice. At this point I am attracted to this girl and would really like to see what may happen relationship-wise. She of course sits down on the loveseat AFTER I have sat down on the full size couch – FUCK, I’M IN THE FRIEND ZONE ALREADY ?! – Whatever, I’m gunna watch this movie, chat throughout it, poke fun at it, and see what I can do about this horrible situation. <LOTR’s spoiler alert> If Frodo can destroy The Ring of Power </spoiler alert> I can dig my way out of THE FRIEND ZONE.

She stayed on the opposite side of the couch for the entire movie. (sad face).

The Two Towers went the same with one important difference. I started to really enjoy our texting in the days between our not-so-tryst-like-meetings and when she arrived at my place I was legitimately interested in what she had to say – not just her T and A assets – I was in THE FRIEND ZONE and didn’t mind being there.

I really enjoyed her company, her nerdy jokes (she got a Star Trek red shirt joke!!), and I realized that we would be really good friends. At some point since our first two- three meetings my definition of her as a sexual target (in the most respectful / academic way) diminished to recognizing that she, while a beautiful woman, would be a good, nay great, friend.

We got together again to watch The Return of The King, and actually sat on the same couch this time (we cooked some soup first and this was a better eating arrangement). Oddly I discovered more awesome stuff about this girl (namely our mutual love of croutons) but there was certainly no ‘spark’ between us, and I was perfectly happy with that – I had stumbled into a good friendship which I hope will continue.

I don’t think she was ever considering us hanging out as anything romantic, and that’s perfectly fine. When we reconnected on FB I really didn’t know much about her other than what I vaguely remembered from years ago so I approached this whole situation having no idea what was gunna happen. At first I entertained the idea of some type of relationship though quickly found that there was no spark between us. No spark meant no pressure, which made hanging out, getting to know someone ‘new’, and generally everything pretty awesome.

Over the past three-ish years I have had every possible feeling concerning the fairer sex and have found myself comfortably, happily, and perfectly content being single. ‘Why?’ You may ask… well I have also discovered that I am admittedly selfish – I don’t enjoy that part in a relationship when you stop being ‘me’ and become a ‘we.’ Losing my identity as an individual is brutal to me. From a Symbolic Interactionism point of view this probably reveals more about me than anything else, maybe I am self-conscience that ‘I’ am not good enough, not strong enough, or maybe dog-gone-it people won’t like me. But I have come to terms with that in the following way – I simply don’t give a fuck anymore, I am going to live my life as I want, and not be afraid of the ‘why aren’t you dating’ questions at every turn.

I am not actively avoiding dating; I simple don’t make it a priority as I am perfectly happy where I am. This is probably the exact opposite mental position the Jen found herself in after the 100+ dates and needing her dating detox. I could never imagine meeting that many people in such a short amount of time – it simply isn’t who I am. I am impressed that anyone would take on such a task!

For now single-dom is pretty awesome, if I start watching High Fidelity on a weekly basis (again) then you will know something in Dan’s Dating World has gone awry and the appropriate federal agency should be contacted.