“Hey, I was wondering if you’d like to get dinner on Saturday. We’ll eat at the Boatyard after we go bowling, and before we rent your favorite movie that we both know every word to. Then we can cuddle for hours and talk about our childhoods and our future plans, our insecurities and our wildest dreams. I can tell you that I got fat on Little Debbie Zebra Cakes, and we can spend all night driving around in hot pursuit of those delicious black and white striped nuggets of love. After discovering them in the dark corner of a 24-hour mom and pop store, we can park on an escarpment to watch the sunrise and laugh for hours about how no one is as cool as we are. Sound good? Alright, dude, see you at four. Imaginary high five!”

No, he did not just drop the D-Word. I palm my boobs. Still there. I Michael-Jackson grab. Nothin. The physical evidence of my gender assignment is relatively convincing, and yet I am Bill. I am Ted. And this adventure sucks.

In his eyes, I’m a dude.

After over two decades of having “something better than that,” not being thought of “in that way,” and enough bi-gender friendship bracelets to fashion a noose, I have become somewhat of an (I flatter myself) aficionado of the causes and signs of life-long, deeply respectful, and Sahara-dry friend zones. And yes, the reduction of your other-gendered hang-out partner’s sex appeal to that of El Duderino himself is a Vegas-lit Friend Zone Sign. No rug will pull this room back together, because once you enter the labyrinth that is the friend zone, there can be no escape.

That’s right, ladies. You might as well sew it up.

Sure, at some point, everyone’s been cock-blocked by friendship, but some of us visit the BFF Motel so often they leave the light on for us. It’s a place populated by man-orexics with an affinity for 18th Century poetry and chubby girls with the fastest emasculating come-backs in the West. But, to my fellow undesirables, I say take heart. Remember, if you’re still unmarried by age 60, at least one of the nine who’ve offered you fall-back engagements might still be alone, and, if you’re lucky, they may still prefer your company to a cold and lonely deathbed enough to marry you. And, if that isn’t sufficient reassurance, just keep reciting “too cool to date” into your mascara-streaked pillow until you fall asleep, or until your head explodes from the paradox. (If all else fails, buy some Bright Eyes. No one will ever be as lonely as Conor Oberst.)

I started my career as a fixture of the friend zone at the YMCA in Lockport, N.Y., where I played in every possible all-boys basketball league from the time I could walk to the time my lady humps made co-ed locker rooms plum indecent. Like every hot-blooded seven year old, I played for the sweaty interaction with some Grade-A (3rd grade) honeys. Needless to say, I fouled out of almost every game, as my coaches became increasingly frustrated with my inability to understand why ass grabs counted as fouls.

Michael, a short blonde Backstreet Boy knockoff, was my first target. He had broken his thumb in the previous game, rendering him small and wounded prey. I held him down by the Y’s tire-swing and tried to kiss him until I saw stars. Not because it was true love, but because he bitch slapped me upside the head with his cast. When told he couldn’t hit a girl, he responded, “But she’s not a girl, she’s Shannan.”

Let’s suspend judgment of his obvious error in syntax to focus on the point of his statement. To Michael, I was an All-Star in the dope show, clothed tit to ass in a white, gender-ambiguous, sex-nullifying body suit.

It only went down hill from there. Miller, a 4’11” 7th grader, explained that I’d be an awesome girlfriend if I wasn’t so damn tall, and politely suggested stacking books on my sky-scraping head to prevent further growth. In high school, I became Lane’s shoulder to cry on as he pined after my unavailable hottie of a girlfriend. In college, I encountered the most eye-crossing declaration of friend-zoning to date: “I don’t want to ruin our friendship with the stress of dating, but we can still hook up.”

I know — I can’t believe it either.

But then I started to notice a change. Even though I never visited California, “dude” and “bro” infiltrated my language. I bent down to kiss lots of boys on the cheeks and became increasingly comfortable changing in front of my shorter male floor-mates. I ate all their food, I discussed fart-smells, and I totally forgot they were guys. I was BFF-ing the shit out of anyone under 6’0”.

My friend zone turned out to be a rectangle — a 72” x 10” rectangle. Keeping Miller’s sage advice in mind, I figured those Napoleons in my friend zone would have little romantic interest in me and my Yeti-bod.

I was wrong. When a certain carry-on boy toy started to monopolize my inbox with blatant innuendo, I instinctively one-upped him with texts that would make Ron Jeremy blush. So, when his proclamation of interest hit me harder than Michael’s cast, I spent the subsequent fifteen minutes trying to Jedi Mind Trick him into believing he did not, in fact, like me. He was equally shocked, as I had come on harder than a booze cruise date at midnight.

I explained to a mutual friend that dating a pocket-sized man would make me feel like a dirty babysitter, and he told me I was being shallow.

But it isn’t just shallow; it’s incredibly selfish too. When it comes to whom you allow into your love-jungle, I believe you have every right to be a little selfish. Relationships take more than just conversation; you need to eye-bang your partner throughout class, dinner, family reunions, etc. And whether it’s height, weight, bench max, index-finger to pinky size ratio (I don’t judge … no, I do), everyone has characteristics that are automatic friend-zone qualifiers. But having other-gendered buddies is healthy, if for no other reason than the ready availability of fart-smell analysis.

(Oh, and if Bright Eyes fails, buy porn. No one will ever be as lonely as Ron Jeremy.)

(Plus, it’s porn.)

Shannan Scarselletta is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be contacted at sscarselletta@cornellsun.com. Awkward Turtle appears alternate Tuesdays.