In popular culture, the friend zone (or friendzone) is a relational concept, describing a situation in which one person in a mutual friendship wishes to enter into a romantic or sexual relationship with the other person, while the other does not. The person whose romantic advances were rejected is then said to have "entered" (or to have been "put in") the friend zone, with the sense that they are stuck there. The friendzone has a strong presence on the Internet; for example, on Facebook, dating sites, and other social media platforms. However, over time the term has expanded into middle schools, high schools, and colleges where young people are discovering their identities when it comes to dating and romance. The concept of the friend zone has been criticized as misogynistic, because of a belief that the concept implies an expectation that women should be romantically involved with men in whom they have no interest, simply because the men were nice to them, though the term refers to all forms of unrequited affection, not necessarily a man liking a woman. It is also closely associated with so-called "nice guy syndrome". The term was originally popularized in the American sitcom television series Friends (1994). In the seventh episode, The One with the Blackout, Ross is lovesick for Rachel, but according to Joey, when two people meet, there is a short period in which there is potential for a romantic relationship that Ross has gone beyond. After this time, if they continue to see each other, they are in the "friend zone" and so a romantic relationship is effectively impossible, even if one of the parties wishes for it to be possible. Terminology The term friendzone can be verbified, as in the sentence "So, she's friend-zoned you." It is described as “[a] situation in which a friendship exists between two people, one of whom has an unreciprocated romantic or sexual interest in the other." Although the term is apparently gender-neutral, the friend zone is often used to describe a situation in a male-female relationship in which the male is in the friend zone and the female is the object of his unrequited desire, or vice versa, where the female is being friend-zoned by the male, although less common. The person who does the friend-zoning is referred to as the friend-zoner, whereas the person who gets friend-zoned is called the friend-zonee. The term "friend