I think you’re missing the point a little. Of course people have different ways of being and different types of relationships. But being friends with someone that you aren’t sexually attracted to or don’t want a relationship with isn’t “putting them in the friend zone.” It’s just being friends. If you are heterosexual and you have same sex friends, you don’t say you are putting them in the friend zone. You just say they are your friends. The “friend zone” is an invented concept that allows men to feel sorry for themselves and blame women when they don’t want to be more than friends.