>> I suspect it is more that the trope is self-fulfilling. <<

That's certainly a part of it.

>>Of course, learning to cook and clean, and how to manage asking one's partner to share in housework, are also subject to your upbringing teaching you those skills.<<

Or deciding to fill the gaps yourself. Nobody seems to reach adulthood with a complete set of personal skills; it's a matter of figuring out what you're missing and whether you want to fix that.

>>Also, Friendzone? Horrible concept, right out of the conceptual landscape where women don't really like sex but hand it out in exchange for love, and men are entitled to sex from the women they want.<<

Agreed. I also resent the way it treats friendship as a lesser concept, which is not necessarily so: friendship can be a primary relationship and sex can be emotionally meaningless bodyplay.

>> Men complaining about "being friendzoned" seem to assume that if they accumulate enough "niceness tokens" they can trade it in for sex. <<

Sometimes, perhaps. But that's not the only version I've seen. I have seen a lot of women misuse this horribly. As in, they'll draw a line and tell men not to cross it: men who obey are ruled out, and those who cross the line are considered for sexual activity. It make me want to slap those women.

>>This is why we need more romances with people of all sexes who are kind, gentle, do the housework, negotiate disagreement and reach acceptable compromises. Give people alternative models of behaviour than the ones they grew up with and the existing "romantic" stereotypes.<<

So much YES to this. It's why I write a lot of what I write. And increasingly, I'm working in primary relationships that are not based on sex/romance as well.