The Friend Zone, part three: How Sexist it is!

This "intelligent" young feminist blogger has quite a bit to say about "nice guys" and their friend zone:

"The Nice GuyTM Syndrome the phenomenon in which a self-proclaimed “nice guy” laments about how his close female friends – for whom he harbors feelings – never want to have a relationship or sex with him. “Why does she always go for the jerk?” the “nice guy” laments. “I’m such a NICE GUY!” Often in these situations, the woman has no idea what his feelings are. Other times, they know but don’t reciprocate, preferring to carry on a friendship than a relationship."

"This, apparently, is totally unacceptable to them. There are memes devoted to the dreaded “friend zone.” There are angsty chain Facebook statuses that are posted passive aggressively time and time again. One of them reads, “A woman has a close male friend. This means he is probably interested in her, which is why he hangs around so much.” Right, because no one wants to be friends with a woman unless she’s having sex with them eventually, right? The status continues to compare a woman just wanting a friendship with a man to a job interview in which the potential employer says, 'You have a great resume, you have all the qualifications we are looking for, but we’re not going to hire you. We will, however, use your resume as the basis for comparison for all other applicants. But we’re going to hire somebody who is far less qualified and is probably an alcoholic.'"

Or better yet, take the job for no pay, while hiring somebody else with lesser qualifications as your boss. That seems more like it. I will give her some kudos on the first part, though.

She elaborates that nice guys "stew bitterly in a sense of their own entitlement, waiting indignantly for something that was never promised to them." In other words, such a guy thinks he's been "robbed of his birthright" when denied the eros he desires, and relegated to being a "just a friend."

In conclusion, "If you have sincere, romantic feelings for a woman you’re friends with, be up front with her." Ditto there. As I've written in two posts below, it is quite pathetic that guys are too wimpy as not to do this. They'll self-righteously pigeonhole real men as "players" and "disrespectful toward women" for not "getting to know them first." All the while, they harbor this erotic attraction, the most pathetic among them finding a herd of women to befriend, moving from one to the next as "friends" when the last heartfelt confession was shot down by the one before.

But this blogging beauty mandates "And if she doesn’t feel the same way? Value her anyway. Be her friend," She also decries romance-seeking men in general as disrespecting of women whom they don't prioritize in their lives as platonic friends, on the basis alone of her whims and their previous interactions.

What stuck-up, misandrist thinking this is. Yes, a man has, as his birthright, the need to find a wife. That usually doesn't happen listening to the likes of this brilliant dame bemoan being "used," along with all her past "friends with benefits" mishaps. He has just as much a right to find love with the opposite sex as do you. Your late night, tear-soaked phonecalls about more boy problems (all of whom you chose, by the way) is a HUGE energy and time drain that hampers the emotional and social growth of both parties. He could be spending that time meeting women who appreciate him for all that he is.

Her argument is fallaciously predicated on the belief that since she already cares for a nice guy as a platonic friend, that he ought to sincerely reciprocate as such. While alleging that these guys only want to get laid by their attractive female friends, these women are so caring and charitable as to still be there for him as his friend. But her own anecdotes speak to the reality of this arrangement: he exists largely as her on-call, free therapeutic crying towel. Who's going to be his free shrink when the poor sap is consumed not by sexual frustration, but pure grief, whenever her tears and moments of joy surrounding her latest paramour are dumped on his lap?

Her (and many others like her) sense of entitlement to his unrequited adoration speaks to a disordered self-centerdness on the women's part. This is almost particular to many Americana Millennial females, who see themselves as perpetual victims no matter what.

Providence College: The Reality

One of the top-ranked Catholic universities in the country today is Providence College (PC). It has consistently ranked in the top five of the US News and World Report "top master's universities -- northeast" category for many years, and has received commendation among a host of other, lesser known college guides.



The institution, which is primarily undergraduate in scope, is operated by the Dominican Fathers (a.k.a. Order of Preachers Friars) Province of St. Joseph. No other higher education outfit in North America (besides a few seminaries) is affiliated exclusively with Dominican clergymen.

PC is especially unique not only for achieving top secular rankings, but a particularly notable religious one as well. In 2007, the Cardinal Newman Society, the de facto watchdog of Catholic education in America (on the basis of orthodoxy), included PC in its then-newly debuted college guide. Listed among barely two-dozen of America's "most Catholic" colleges, PC was lauded for its uniquely rigorous, freshman and sophomore Development of Western Civilization (DWC) core curriculum, an anomaly even among Catholic schools today. This particular core curriculum imitates the traditional, classical model, emphasizing the Great Books, theology, Western philosophy, and other humanities concerns. The institution was likewise lauded for its then-recently installed president, Father Brian Shanley, O.P.

In 2006, Father Shanley forced the annual V-Day, or Vagina Monologues production to leave the campus. This was in spite of fairly widespread faculty and student dissent. PC had been among three-dozen or so Catholic colleges (of some 220 in the US) to harbor the annual man-bashing, obscene spectacle, a supposed celebration of female sexuality and protest against man vs. woman violence. That same year, a notorious sociology professor, who had been exposed by the student newspaper for engaging female undergraduates in lewd speech during classes over many years, was abruptly "retired."

I wrote about these and other serious irregularities for a feature on PC in the October 2004 edition of New Oxford Review. This article was largely written in reaction to the continued praise heaped upon PC by the right wing Intercollegiate Studies Institute's College Guide.

A number of folks have requested that I write an update on the College, given some seemingly positive developments (at least from the traditional Catholic perspective) in more recent times. Consider also that the Dominican's St. Joseph Province, and the loosely-affiliated Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia are both among the more conservative Catholic religious communities in the US today, the latter of which has become far more involved with the campus.

Unfortunately, the update is not a positive one. The Newman Guide has obviously booted PC off of its select "recommended colleges" list.

Among other matters, are perhaps the student body subculture themes embodied in this serious viewer warning candid camera spoof, live from the PC quad, seen below:



How's that for some religious conversion? Let me tell you, that little scene is TAME for what happens at PC. For several years, Providence College has ranked as one of America's top party schools, listing as #3 in "most beer drinkers" and #1 in "most hard liquor drinkers." PC has long hosted an on-campus watering hole as well. In common parlance, this is f'ing extreme...

Recently, the TFP Student Action, another conservative activist group focused on higher education, listed Providence College as among the 52 percent of American Catholic colleges and universities that hosts a "pro-homosexual club." If I recall, this "SHEPHERD" group goes back about nine years. If 52 percent of Catholic colleges have such a club, then 48 percent do not. Yet, somehow PC has been able to finagle its way onto the highly recommended lists of two of the most conservative-leaning college guides in the last several years, in spite of its true substantive nature.

As for academics: The most recent major to be added to the undergraduate roster is Women's Studies. Previously, it was an interdiciplinary minor. Then, having been severely henpecked by the campus-based feminists in the face of expelling V-Day from college grounds (over its outward obscenities), Father Shanley has been looking for ways to make it up to them. Women's Studies is one of the most politicized majors in existence, bent on inculcating radical feminism into the minds of students.

The new core curriculum has some interesting features as well: "DWC is four semesters of 4‐hours each in the new Core as opposed to 4 semesters of 5‐hours each in the former Core." Now, there's "One Core‐designated diversity course. Students will demonstrate proficiency in diversity, understood as either cross‐cultural or involving diversity within the American context."

Rather than emphasizing didactic tradition, it's now about "diversity." I'm not going to be the one to insist on ecclesial purity and total orthopraxy for Providence College. If it's anyone's job, it's the job of the alumni to do so. Notwithstanding, the issue here is as much as it was eight years ago: truth in advertising.
I've known many PC students and alumni over the years. Quite a number of them are rather bright and ambitious. Then there are others -- of the religious element -- who've insisted upon my self-censorship, mainly because the school is an outfit of the venerable Dominican Order. That is simply low-brow clericalism if I've ever heard it. These certain theology students and grads need to know that PC is NOT a seminary, and most students are not there for theology training. Nontheless, if Catholic values were of such high priority for the instutution, they would be conveyed across the disciplines. Not just by the few Dominicans who still teach courses on Thomas Aquinas.

2013 UPDATE: Apparently, PC's best-known and renowned conservative Catholic professor has some issues with the campus's administration as well.

Rather than delivering another sermon on the state of Catholic higher education (as I think what you've noted above stands on its own), I will say this: PC is yet another Rhode Island institution gone wrong. There are many today, including state agencies, hospitals, other universities, and yes, other religious entities.