Too many guys and girls complain online, in real-life, wherever, about being “friend zoned.” Let’s clear the air. The friend zone is an excuse. It’s an excuse for when a person likes another male or female, but that person doesn’t like the other back. It’s a sense of entitlement. It’s the idea that just because someone gives another person their time or affection, she or he is in the wrong for not giving them sexual or romantic favors back. It’s a defense mechanism, a way for them to make the other person seem coldhearted, callous or dumb for simply acting on their feelings, or rather lack of feelings. I mean, it’s easy to do. The friend zone is a way for that person to flip their rejection onto the other person. They are the loyal friend, the one who actually understands them, the “nice guy;” they are attractive but painfully unaware of how good they would be together, instead opting to chase after the jerks in life.

However, girls and guys don’t like jerks they like people who are real, someone who will put your insecurities to sleep and genuinely makes you happy. Too many people think that they are “nice” because they’re inoffensive—they don’t make fun of others, they don’t flirt, they are afraid to tell the person they are interested in their true feelings. That’s not a nice person. That’s an individual who’s not mean, and that’s it. Girls and guys from my perspective like individuals who are charming, funny, kind, intelligent. If you think someone owes you something simply because you’re nice, then you have a warped sense of entitlement.

Even if the person you like actually chases jerks, what are you doing? You’re not a jerk by nature, so what makes you think that you two would actually be good together? Are you going to change your personality and put on a front for them? What happens when they actually get to know you? They would not like you for who you really are.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that all the best relationships are natural. Yes, you can pursue a member of the opposite sex, and sometimes they’ll turn you down three, four, five, however many times. But if they don’t even give you the option to be turned down, and instead see your role in their life as a firm, steady friend, then you’re just going to have to accept that—if you actually did appreciate them as a person in the first place. If you’re still upset, here’s how to get out of the so-called friend zone, which is the same solution as most problems in life: communicate. Tell that person your true feelings. You’re not risking your friendship; if that actually makes them not talk to you anymore, then they were not worth it in the first place.

Communicate stupidly, communicate clumsily, but communicate nonetheless. Look down and mumble all your words but at least just let them know. If they do not like you back, it’s okay. If they just want to be friends, and then you turn on them, then not only were you not a nice person, but you really were just an entitled jerk all along—someone who thinks that someone owes them something because they give you their time, effort or money. The free world doesn’t work that way. One thing I’ve learned about 90 percent of relationships is that if you get close as friends, and someone still isn’t attracted to you, it’s probably not going to work out, at least for now. It’s hormones, it’s chemistry. I know it’s hard, but you need to either accept their friendship or else leave them alone.

So don’t trivialize their feelings by claiming you’ve been friend zoned. Don’t expect them to hook up with you because you talk to them on Facebook late at night. Don’t think that if they just opened their eyes and gave you a chance, you two would fall in love happily ever after. The friend zone is the ineffectual tool of an ineffectual person. Stop using it as an excuse.