So, Nice Guys of OK Cupid is no more. Like a whirlwind romance, it arrived in a flash, sparked a few rampant weeks of overheated passion, then vanished in the night. Just why the Tumblr blog might have been pulled remains unclear; the reasons for its popularity can be more easily speculated upon. In its short life, it earned hundreds of thousands of links, dozens of angry blogs, features in the Huffington Post and Gawker, and was highlighted by prominent feminists such as Laurie Penny and Hugo Schwyzer.

The expressed intent of the site was to name and shame users of the dating site OK Cupid who proclaimed themselves "nice guys" while in the next breath expressing misogynistic, sexist or hateful views. Many were indeed overtly misogynistic, referring to women in crude and ugly language or coming across less as potential dates and more as potential date rapists. Others were more subtly offensive, if at all. Several were promoted to this rogues' gallery solely due to their use of one little phrase: the friend zone.

According to the site's supporters, anyone who uses the phrase friend zone – meaning an ostensibly platonic relationship in which one person is romantically interested in the other – is intrinsically misogynist and displaying entitled, privileged attitudes. In return, guys who talk about the zone typically describe it as some kind of living hell of loneliness and frustrated desire, reflected in no fewer than seven pages on Urban Dictionary.

The great irony is that the friend zone really doesn't exist. The notion that once people make friends, they will never progress to a romantic relationship, is quickly debunked by a glance at the real world, replete with couples who were friends for months or years before their relationship sparked. Like the related myth that nice guys stay on the shelf while girls swoon for bastards, it is a product of confirmation bias. If you believe it is true, you will see evidence everywhere, while ignoring all the examples of genuinely sweet and gentle guys doing just fine or the many slimeballs who are miserably alone.

But while the friend zone doesn't exist, the emotional experience it reflects most certainly does. In my experience, the type of straight man who complains about the friend zone is low in confidence and self-esteem, and either develops crushes on women who are already genuinely his friends or develops a true friendship with a woman to whom he is already attracted.

Too shy and reserved to make a direct approach, he bides his time until the inevitable punchline: "You're a really nice guy, but I just don't think of you like that. Can't we just be friends?" Does this man feel entitled to sex? No, I suspect he expects rejection (which may be the root of his problem) and usually accepts it. The usual reaction is to retreat quietly, his heart and self-confidence a little more broken, to drown his sorrows or upload a self-pitying dating profile. The sad truth is probably that most men who feel themselves to be in the friend zone are just a bit rubbish at dating, flirting and what my granny would have called wooing.

Self-pity and self-loathing are not attractive traits, but they're not in themselves misogynistic. However, it is striking how gendered the friend zone phenomenon appears to be. Psychologists have found that the male in a cross-gender friendship is significantly more likely to be sexually attracted to his friend than vice versa and likely to overestimate his friend's sexual interest in him. Men, like women, are victims of our tediously stubborn gender roles, where the majority of both men and women still expect the male to make the first move. While people of both genders will experience loneliness and unrequited love, it is more likely to be the man who experiences explicit, sudden rejection, and this may be why it is men, not women, who complain about the zone.

Friendship, affection, love and lust can and do occur in isolation, but they usually come as a package, separated by only the most fragile and porous of emotional membranes. When love and lust are batted out of court, it is hardly surprising that friendship and affection sometimes wither. It requires a particularly bleak view of human nature to assume that this means the friendship was never genuine, or that he secretly believes the woman should have been obliged to have sex with him.

There is a danger in labelling men like this as misogynists or creeps, and it is not just the emotional harm to the men themselves. As feminists will be the first to explain, our culture polices masculinity. Those who deviate from an assertive, even aggressive masculinity are shamed as wimps or with homophobic slurs. The shaming of the sexually reserved man is the converse of the shaming of the sexually assertive woman, both are defying the same norm.

Some lonely, dejected men may perhaps need reminding that nobody owes them sex or a relationship, ever. On a more practical note, they might note that using terms like "nice guy" or "friendzoned" is likely to send a signal that they're about as sexy as a haddock with fin rot. If that lesson is learned, perhaps this whole saga will have served some purpose.

• This article was amended on 8 January 2013. It originally referred to Laurie Penny praising the Nice Guys of OK Cupid site, which she did not do. This has now been corrected.