Highway to the Stranger Zone

You unlock this door with a text message, maybe an e-mail. Beyond it is another dimension: a dimension of being out of sight, out of mind. You're being dumped into a land of both shadow and forgetfulness. You've just crossed over into the Stranger Zone.

We've all heard of the Friend Zone, haven't we? Well, most of us have . . . right?

The thing is, it doesn't really exist. Not in my experience, it doesn't. It's possible, but it's quite improbable.

You don't have to go on very many dates with someone to get friend zoned. Heck, you don't even have to have gone out on a date with someone to get friend zoned. I've seen it happen. I've also seen people hire a friend or a member of the bishopric to deliver that message second hand. Maybe hired goons with brass knuckles named Vito (the goons, not the brass knuckles), I dunno.

The Friend Zone is what you get for having the "let's just be friends" talk with someone in whom you are interested romantically, right after they put your heart into a blender, mix in Chlorox bleach, leave it in the fridge for four weeks, forget about it, pull it back out covered in freezer burn, duct tape the pieces back together, and then mail it to you by carrier pigeon.

Consider this sample conversation:

Girl: I think we should break up.
Boy (feverishly checking his pockets for a receipt for the engagement ring he purchased earlier that day): Wonderful! Who needs a heart, after all? As long as we can still be friends!
Girl (while checking her Pokémon Go stats on her phone): Sure, friends.
Boy: Great! That way, I can still go with you to the movies every Tuesday. As friends!
Girl: No.
Boy: Well, at least (using air quotes) "AS FRIENDS" (meanwhile, several anxious people in the restaurant turn their heads in concern, and the manager calls for security) I can still see all your Facebook posts when you rebound within a few weeks and find a better-looking, independently wealthy guy! One with big muscles!
Girl (almost cutting him off): AND a jeep!

I don't mean to say by this that the only alternative to the Friend Zone is any kind of Enemy Zone. I'm not going to do anything rash like gun the engine and run over someone who once dumped me if I see her crossing the street, for example. But I'm really not going to be part of her life in any way, shape, or form ever again. I call it the Stranger Zone.

Nine out of 10 times this is the case, anyway. With that tenth person, your interaction tends to be limited to very casual conversation; "hi"s and "hello"s and not much more.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. I'll use a Book of Mormon example here, and it is simply that Nephi and his family reached a point in time at which it was no longer safe for them to remain near Laman and Lemuel. Namely, they would be murdered savagely. Following Lehi's death, they packed up their stuff and put a great deal of distance between themselves and their brethren. Nephi and friends still loved their brethren, cared for them, and forgave them, but they needed space.

Likewise, it can be "unsafe" for you and your heart, your emotional and spiritual well-being, to be around someone who has caused you pain or to whom you've caused pain, and making a clean break is not a bad or wrong option.

My problem with the "let's just be friends" talk, which ends up being the Stranger Zone anyway, is that people mostly don't really mean to continue to be your friend if they're rejecting you.

I once upon a time went out with a girl in my ward a few times. I thought we had a pretty good time together, and my thinking moved into the "I'd like to get to know you better" conversation in my head.

Ha ha! I have delusions of grandeur sometimes, huh? Assuming anything else was going to happen was my first mistake. I called this person after a couple of weeks had gone by, after I neither saw her at church (it's a big ward) nor received any kind of ping pong/positive contact. She did not answer, so I left a voicemail. More time passed. I called and left another voicemail. Then I heard nothing back a second time. Ultimately, and in a final effort, in case her preferred method of communication was text, I sent a text message, my "third call, that's all," and finally received a reply, in which I was told, in summation: "I see us being only friends for now."

Naturally, this is not what she really meant. I don't blame her; it's never what anyone means. It's just the way our culture has conditioned us to act, as if getting to still be friends with someone who has crushed you like a gnat is some sort of consolation prize, like going on "Jeopardy!" and finishing the game with a negative dollar amount but still getting the chance to embarrass yourself of national TV and earning a gift card to Texas Roadhouse.

I finally saw this girl at the church the very next Sunday after the aforementioned text, and she avoided/walked right past me without saying a word. You know, like "friends" would do.

I also think of the time when cruel fate placed me and a date in theater seats that were directly a row behind my ex and her now-husband. It had not yet been a year since our breakup, and in that time, she had somehow recovered from this "difficult" breakup by finding this other guy, marrying him, and, at the time of this encounter, was already showing a baby bump. And there they were there in front of me, cuddling throughout the duration of the show.

It was torture.

Nevertheless, I did not make actual verbal or eye contact with this couple of front of me because they never turned around; had they done so, I would have smiled and said hello, and then I would have let them get on with their lives. I also paid attention to the show on stage more than I've ever paid attention to any musical ever. It is possible to be in the Stranger Zone while still being polite and still being a good person.

DISCLAIMER: Before the hate mail pours in, yes, ladies, I realize that we guys do stupid, unintentionally hurtful things, too. It's a recessive gene on the Y chromosome, actually. I accept dumb things I may have done wrong, too, because I'm learning as I'm going along, just as you are. I know only my experience and how certain events have affected me; I don't know anyone else's thoughts or motivations.

Basically, what I'm saying (to anyone who cares to listen? to the chair Neil Diamond is so fond of talking to? screaming out my window like Bastian at the end of The Neverending Story?) is: Don't send someone to the Friend Zone if you don't really intend to be that person's friend from that point forward. It's okay to accept the Stranger Zone. And in many cases, it's better for both people that it be that way.