It's the friend zone of friendships. Unlike friend-zoning, which is when someone you want to be your lover says you should just be friends. Acquaintance zoning is when someone who you want to be friends with doesn't even want to be your friend. This can be way more degrading than friend-zoning, usually because being friend-zoned most of the time is because a person knows you more as a friend than a lover. But an Acquaintance Zone is when a person doesn't even want to get to know you and develop a relationship as friends, which can be way more degrading than rejecting a romantic relationship.
After she got over her anger about our break up, Nancy wanted to remain friends. But I think it's a better idea to keep her in my polite acquaintance zone.
When a situation goes from, romances, bromances, friendzones to the nope zone. It's time to label it and call the time of death as Aquaintance Zone. It was already feeling weird, awkward, twighlight zone-ish. Now things aren't what either of you wanted and you may be in the grey area, so this helps you decide to phase it out in a friendly way. You taper off, slowly. It's better than ghosting. Ghosting is harsh and it is for that last resort for cutting ties completely.
Person: I thought we were friends and this was going somewhere?
You: Well, honestly we were in the friendzone, but now we're definitely in the Aquaintance Zone. Have a good one.
Where you relegate people whose uninteresting posts clog up your social media feeds because they're in your "friends" circle.
"After about her 20th post this week bragging about her workout routine and the differenthealth shakes she's trying, I had to put her in the acquaintancezone."