Stop me if this sounds familiar.
You meet a hot girl or have an attractive female friend.
Instead of making your intentions known explicitly, you only imply your affections, by treating her extremely well and always being there for her. You never make any sort of move on her.
After a certain amount of figurative (and never literal) hand-holding and “best friend” hangouts, you secretly hope and expect her dependence and comfort with you turns into romantic love, and you skip straight to the ending of a Matthew McConaughey movie.
Facepalming yet?
Real life isn’t the movies, and your secret hope will leave you feeling cheated and misled.
Of course, it’s easy to talk about these things as if they were conscious choices, but the reality is they almost never are. The path to the Friendzone is an extremely covert and deceptive slippery slope, and each step makes complete, logical sense at the time – I like to call this the backdoor best friend gambit.
She called me her best friend! I’m so in, right?
I’ve got some bad news for you… The worst part about the Friendzone is you’re the last person to find out you’re in it.
Step 1: “Man, I kind of like Jenny. But we get along so well and have so many friends in common that if I just ask her out and she says no, the whole group would be so awkward and everyone would know!”
Step 2: “I think she’s definitely going to notice how good I am to her and how much I care about her. That’s boyfriend material right here.”
Step 3: “We’re so close now she has to know I’m interested… we talk so much and she refers to me as her best friend. That’s how all relationships start, so she’s definitely interested now. I’m in.
Step 4: “Wow, I’m so nice to her and she ignores me for that dumb guy she met at the club? I feel like I wasted my time and money taking her out so much. She led me on for months.”
See how quickly it turns?
Every step makes sense and flows logically from what happens in real life. You’ve engaged Jenny, gotten close to her, and she now confides in you and enjoys your company.
She even calls you her best friend… yet little did you know that that’s her way of keeping you at bay and labeling you as someone that is not a romantic interest. You treat her like friends treat each other, so she has no indication of anything ulterior.
It’s easy to put the blame on women for putting people in the Friendzone, but as you can see above, and probably in hindsight from your own experiences, most of the blame lies squarely on the guys’ shoulders. You were too slow on the draw and forced the woman to categorize you like way.
The way to avoid the Friendzone is stupidly simple once you peel back the curtain and realize what you’ve been doing.
You put her on a pedestal and didn’t pull the trigger.
Do the opposite.
First, if you like someone, pursue her and make your intentions known. Don’t depend on a woman to read your mind. If you act like a close friend, guess what? She will think you want friendship, regardless of what she wants.
Much easier said than done, but it’s backed up by a very simple cost-benefit analysis.
It’s a very low-risk and high-reward move because rejection is mostly just awkward, and people get over awkward. A couple of weeks and things will be normal, so you’ve lost nothing.
Next, don’t treat her like a friend – that’s the message you want to avoid. Flirt with her, break the touch barrier, and establish yourself as a sexually available male. She needs to be able to imagine having sex with you, and that rarely happens to passive emotional crutches. Women don’t have sexual tension with their platonic male friends.
Third, take her off that pedestal you’ve built for her and stop viewing your friendship as something special and unique. Chances are, a huge basis for the friendship is your secret affection for her – not really the basis of a real friendship.
Finally, reject being a “maybe” or backup for her. That’s what the Friendzone really is – it’s a bucket a woman can reach into when no one she actively wants pursues her so she can consider the best of the rest. You’re more than that. Act like it.
The Friendzone can be a blackhole to those that don’t know how to escape it… But it’s largely a blackhole of one’s own creation, which is an empowering realization.