The Robot

Human ‘Boadicea‘ writes in with a question:

Dear Robot,

Check out #3 on this list about guys putting girls in the friend group. Just thought I’d send it along and see what you think; it reminded me of the whole girls have 2 ladders thing, but it’s coming from a guy:

3. You’re a friend. Girls, beware: sometimes we can’t tell when you’re interested in us. When I was in college, my best girlfriend told all my roommates that she liked me, and made them swear not to tell me. They actually kept the secret pretty well for a while. But when I finally found out, I was completely blind-sided—and I only thought of her as a friend from day one. . . . [View original]

So I wondered if you agreed or if you maintain the Ladder Theory position that believes guys only have the one ladder.

Signed,
Boadicea

Dear Boadicea,

I agree, but with an important qualification.

Guys can have a “friends” ladder of sorts, but their friends ladder will always be in a vertical relation to their sex ladder. In other words, a guy’s “friends” ladder will always just be the lowest few rungs of his sex ladder. So these girls who are actually platonic friends to this guy are really just ranked 0-4 or so on his sex ladder.

Important note: What I just said means that the women whom your average guy is friends with are not actually his friends.  This does not mean that almost all of a guy’s female friends are 0-4 on his sex ladder.  Rather, it means this: to a guy, almost all females exist as sexual possibilities.  It would take a very low sexual score (0-4) in order to dispel the lurking sense of sexual possibility in a man’s interaction with a woman.  And, as the Ladder Theory so eloquently puts it, it seems obvious that a lingering desire to bend your “friend” over the table naked sort of precludes “friendship” in any really platonic sense.

Now, consider the reality that he’s probably right (or at least agrees with the majority) to rate these actually platonic female friends as he does. Because of that, these girls are probably fairly low in sexual purchasing power (because to most guys, they’re 0-4). To put it bluntly: he is probably worth more to them than they are to him. So of course they’re attracted to him and want something more of him while he doesn’t, and—here’s the clincher—of course they don’t want him to know, because they know that he knows it’s a stretch. Otherwise they’d be more sexually confident in their flirtation.

Only girls, then, can have two ladders that are horizontally arranged. À la femme, the friends ladder is not different from the sex ladder only in “vertical” terms of sexual degree. Rather, the woman’s friends ladder is completely devoid of sex. It is different in kind rather than in degree: rather than consisting of “less” sexual men (as a man’s friends ladder would of women), it consists of men that that woman does not consider sexually at all.

But all that this really amounts to, at least practically speaking, is just that a woman can consider extremely attractive men as only friends. Why? Because the behavior and attitude of these men are such that they are thought of as non-sexual. Think feminine, beautiful men that a woman would never think of sleeping with.

And why not? Because they’re unintimidating. To the woman, they’re not participating in the power struggle that every sexual man participates in, in every animal society whatsoever: the struggle to demonstrate one’s alpha status—that is, one’s superior genes.

Of course, these men actually are participating in this struggle (every animal is). But they’re really bad at it. So bad, in fact, that to the woman, they don’t even seem to be trying (think Steve Carell). These other, unintimidating men aren’t even trying to sell their genes. And if they’re not trying to sell genes, then the woman considers them as support for her buying genes elsewhere from those who are selling it. Preferably, she’ll buy these genes from the alpha male; but she’ll settle at one time or another for the most-alpha genes she can get.

So for a woman, a man can be a friend—in fact, “friend” is an apt word, because she will think of this male friend in the same way that she’ll think of her female friends—that is, as a trustworthy, helpful, good-intentioned support and release system. Not, however, as a licensed purveyor of sperm.

Now a guy, on the other hand, would never be able to be consider a beautiful woman as a nonsexual being. It’s simple to see why—her sexual ranking would place her above the bottom few rungs of his sexual ladder. And since those few rungs are the only thing he’s got close to a “friends ladder,” she could never be a friend in the same sense that another man could.

I hope this answers your question.

Yours truly,
The Robot

Remember that you can write in with your own questions to The Robot on any aspect of human culture. Just send in an email to: robot@therobot.org.