The “Friendzone”: Renegotiating Gender Performance and Boundaries in Relationship Discourse Chelsea R. Buchler Senior Honors Thesis Department of Linguistics University of Colorado at Boulder Advisory Committee: Dr. Kira Hall, Thesis Advisor Linguistics Dr. Angela Thieman Dino, Member Anthropology Dr. Maria Thomas-Ruzic, Member Linguistics April 8, 2014 Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ABSTRACT 0. INTRODUCTION 1 1. UNDERSTANDING THE PERFORMANCE OF THE FRIENDZONE 4 1.1 THE PERFOMATIVE APPROACH TO LANGUAGE AND GENDER 4 1.2 THE GROWTH OF THE FRIENDZONE 6 2. METHODOLOGY 9 2.1 THE FRIENDZONE GENERATION 9 2.2 PROCESS AND FINDINGS 11 3. THE PERCEPTIONS OF FRIENDZONING 13 3.1 IDEOLOGIES IN THE MEDIA 13 3.2 IDEOLOGIES OF THE INTERNET 17 3.3 IDEOLOGIES OF THE DATA 23 3.4 ACTUALITIES 27 3.5 THE GRAMMATICAL CONSTRUCT OF THE FRIENDZONE 36 3.6 WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN? 38 4. CONCLUSION 40 BIBLIOGRAPHY 45 APPENDICES 48 A. TRANSCRIPTION KEY 48 B. ANONYMOUS SURVEY 49 C. LIST OF INTERVIEW QUESTIONS 50 Acknowledgements With thanks to Dr. Kira Hall for all of her assistance in tackling this topic and for setting me on tHe rigHt tracK tHrougHout tHe entire process, to my tHesis committee of Dr. Angelo THieman Dino and Dr. Maria THomas-Ruzic for all of their assistance and consideration, and to my parents and friends for all of tHeir patience and support. Abstract THe term friendzone Has become more and more common in tHe vernacular of younger generations, particularlY over tHe past few Years. THis term is predominantlY used in a relationship context, and always to negotiate the boundaries between platonic and romantic relationsHips. Due to tHe assumed heterosexual default for the romantic marKetplace, tHis term is used not only to negotiate relationships but also to perform gender, redefining and shifting the roles of Young men and Young women in romantic as well as platonic relationships. Through a series of interviews and surveys, this study focuses on ideologies inHerent in tHe term friendzone, as well as the ways in which the word is used in everyday conversation. I argue that the disparity between representation and reality reflects a changing understanding in cross-gender relationships, as well as in How to perform one’s own gender in relationsHip contexts, botH platonic and romantic. The thesis thus analyzes the disparitY between ideologies of tHe term friendzone and its actualities—or rather, How tHe term is actuallY used in daY-to-day situations. The goal is to discover How tHe term is used to perform gender in tHese scenarios and what tHe term means for tHe generations tHat use it. 0. Introduction At first look, defining the term friend zone or friendzone seems relatively straightforward. (As a side note, friend zone spelled as two words appears to be the older form of the term, whereas recent spellings of the term are commonly friendzone). As an article titled Escape the Friend Zone: From Friend to Girlfriend or Boyfriend from Psychology Today puts it, “’the friend zone’ refers to a situation where one individual in a friendship develops more intense feelings and wants to become ‘more than friends’ with the other person” (“Escape The Friend Zone,” 2011). This is a straightforward, gender-neutral definition. However, it is also a simplification of a term that has grown to be loaded with a number of connotations and alternate definitions. A user on the website “Urban Dictionary”, a site dedicated to collecting and defining slang, defined the term eight years ago as, “What you attain after you fail to impress a woman you're attracted to. Usually initiated by the woman saying, ‘You're such a good friend’. Usually associated with long days of suffering and watching your love interest hop from one bad relationship to another” (“Urban Dictionary”, 2003). This is far from the most vitriolic definition on the website. Clearly, these two definitions, though defining the same word, exhibit different meanings. The question then becomes how a term with such diverse meanings can be used effectively—and why. Without a doubt, everyday use of the word friendzone varies from its more formal definitions. Language does not remain static; it is constantly evolving. However, while it is impossible to expect everyone to have the same definition of any given word, when the definitions are so distinct as to be almost unrecognizable, there must exist problems of understanding. To attribute this merely to gender differences is a simplification. I suggest 1 in this thesis that differences in meaning do not arise out of inherent differences between men and women; rather, the use of the term friendzoning is an example of the performance of gender through language. So long as gender is constructed out of a series of actions and consolidated through repetition through time, so too is gender performed by speech acts (Butler, 1988). In a society still dominated by heterosexual beliefs, there is very little as important in the performance of gender as the performance of relationships between men and women. This fact has led to countless articles and studies regarding whether or not women and men are capable of being friends, many of which reflect an under-appreciation and marginalization of cross-gender friendships (Monsour, 2002). A concept such as friendzone is a distinct way for a generation to attempt to navigate their gender identity, especially in relation to the “opposite” gender. The purpose of this study is to define the term friendzoning amongst the particular demographic of college-age youth, as well as the ways in which the word can be used. An attempt will be made to gather accepted grammatical forms of the word, as well as synonyms or associated words. There are currently no proper definitions of the word; though it has an online entry in the Oxford Dictionaries, it is a scant definition that does not address the myriad of ways that it can be used. This study will instead gather definitions from the generation that popularized the term. With this data, it is possible to observe how the word functions for college students who identify as men and women, and how it contributes to their identities. For both men and women who recognize the term, friendzoning is distinctly pejorative; this is an essential aspect to understanding why its use is so important. For the defining term of a generation to have such negative connotations makes a statement about how the performance of gender is changing, both 2 in same-sex and cross-sex interaction. The use of the term friendzone is a social practice, but it is a social practice that reveals changing attitudes about relationships, both romantic and platonic, and the negotiation of these relationships. This study will discuss the results of both anonymous surveys and of interviews of both men and women. These men and women will have their generation in common; all subjects were between the ages of 18 and 22, and college students at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The surveys will be analyzed to gather a basic understanding of the definitions of the term friendzone, as well as its grammatical aspects. The interviews will be analyzed to determine how the term friendzone is used in different contexts, amongst different genders, and why. I begin with a review of the literature that is relevant to this topic and that has influenced the current study of language and gender. I will also review the short history of the term friendzone: specifically, where it came from and why it is such a popular term amongst particular age groups. I will then discuss the methods and process of this study. This will be followed by the results gathered from the study, their significance, and their implications. I will finish with a discussion of these implications, as well as what further research needs to be undertaken in order to fully understand the impact of the word friendzone and its reach. The use of the term friendzone in college student discourse is a performance of gender that separates itself from the connotations it carries both in the media and on the Internet. This performance is a negotiation of cross-gender platonic relationships in a context where default heterosexual romantic relationships places pressure on young men and women to become romantically involved. 3 1. Understanding the Performance of the Friendzone 1.1 The Performative Approach to Language and Gender The study of language as it pertains to gender has gone through a number of large changes as the field grew and developed. This is relevant for how the term friendzone will be discussed in this study. Early language and gender research established the existence of a dominance model and a difference model (see Eckert 2003). The dominance model established that women speak differently from the norm—that is, men’s speech—due to societal constraints (Lakoff, 1975). Specifically, differences in men’s speech and women’s speech arise out of male dominance over women through patriarchal systems (Freed, 1992). The difference model, in contrast, posits that women and men belong to different subcultures and thus orient to different norms of speaking. Men and women can be shown to speak differently through empirical analysis of discourse, as well as our intuitive understanding of the situation (Tannen, 1990). But as critics of the difference model have claimed, it is dangerous to stop the analysis here. Caution has to be taken when studying differences split by gender. These differences do not merely reflect gendered subcultures, but also societal pressures and constructs. Following this, a method of analyzing linguistic performance was formed that involves acknowledging language as something that constructs gender.