As with pretty much everyone, I’ve often heard of being stuck in the Friend Zone. From what I understand, it’s supposed to be the place where a man ends up if he’s waited too long to ask a woman out while being friends with her. What effect does waiting a long time have which prevents dating?
I also hear people saying that they prefer to be friends first before moving on to dating, which would seem to go contrary to the Friend Zone theory.
I wonder if, when a man thinks he’s ended up in the Friend Zone because he waited too long, what’s really happened is that she was never interested in being more than friends in the first place. But he doesn’t know that, so he tells himself she said no because he waited too long.
Also, if a man has been friends with a woman for a while, how does he go about signalling that he wants to be more than friends?
I never thought it had anything to do with waiting too long. My interpretation has always been that “stuck in the Friend Zone” is just a figure of speech, equivalent to “we’re just friends.” It does connote a desire of the person who’s stuck to be more than friends, though.
He doesn’t signal, he just says so. "I know we’ve been friends for a while, but in truth I’ve gotten pretty interested in you- can I take you to dinner on Saturday? I’ll understand if you’d rather not, but if so I might need to cool it with the friendship for a little while until the feeling fades a bit. What say?
Rules have exceptions, so expect the Dopes to beat you to death with the exceptions, because they provide hope. Nothing like hope when discussing these issues at the Dope.
The problem is that the very fact that you, MichaelEmouse, posted the question/issue. You are inherently going to be a friend to a lot of women when you would like to be more. What you did in the OP is almost innate to guys who are destined to be the friend.
Your attractiveness to women will ramp up when you are inherently confident. Every time you come back to this thread, you cement yourself into the role of the friend.
The “friend zone,” much like “ladder theory,” are inventions by nice guys to rationalize their lack of relationships. They provide an explanation for not having girls fall all over you, instead of just taking responsibility.
Believe me, I’m a reformed “nice guy” who now realizes that the full panoply of male/female relationships do not fit into such neat little boxes. I’ve seen too many friends turn into lovers and lovers turn into friends to put any stock in such things.
The long and short of it? Ask her out on a date. It doesn’t have to be dinner and a movie, but it should be clear that it’s just the two of you, and that it’s not just “hanging out.” Using the words “date” would be helpful.
Ask her out, and if she wants to go out with you, she’ll say yes, and if she doesn’t she’ll say no. It’s one of those things that is entirely simple yet not at all easy.
The tricky part is interpreting the “no” if she turns you down. Sometimes it means “I’m absolutely certain I’ll never want to date you” and sometimes it means “I haven’t quite decided how I feel about you yet” or “I’d like to, but I’m afraid of new relationships” or any number of other things.
You’ll have to use your own judgement about whether or not to keep trying, and how persistent you can be without crossing into stalker territory.
There are, of course, no guarantees, but the “Friend Zone” is not necessarily a life sentence. (Just ask my wife of 14 years, who said “no” for eight months!)
I really thought this board was better than this bullshit.
There is some truth in the whole confidence thing, but trying to bust people for being unconfident don’t help. When’s the last time someone told you to be confident, and suddenly you were? It doesn’t work that way. Knowledge produces confidence. Experience teaches confidence. “Confident” guys disparaging other people might make the “confident” people feel better, but it never helps. Most confident people seem to have no clue on how to actually help the unconfident.
Take your advice for instance. There is no reason why asking a question about how romance works is indicative or creates a lack of confidence. Confident people know what they don’t know and ask questions. Being ignorant is not the same thing as being confident, and intelligent women (and men) can tell the difference. And what intelligent person wants an actual relationship with a stupid person?
It’s not like this guy is asking “how do I become confident”, where I agree the answer is to stop asking and start acting. He’s asking about a romantic concept. What is the “friend’s zone”? Why is it such a bad place to be? Why does the amount of time you take to ask someone out have anything to do with it? And how does it square up with women wanting or claiming to want to be friends first?
None of these questions were answered, and the lack of answer and lashing out at the rest of us very heavily implies that you didn’t know the answer, either. And, again ignorance is not confidence.
I realize man people who ask these quesitons have a person in mind. That’s not my case. There is no available female friend I’m interested in at the moment.
Well, generally speaking then I think markdash has the right answer. Yes, some men are stuck being friends with women they would rather date, but it’s not universal or mystical or mysterious. It’s just that not everyone wants to date everyone else, even if they like them well enough to be friends.
As a woman; imo this is the way to go. I have never been able to tell when a man is attracted to me. I have been pleasantly surprised when the male friend has spoken out; and respected him more for taking the chance on being rejected.
The friend zone and being friends are not in anyway the same thing. The friend zone is when you reach the point that the most the other person wants from you is friendship. And it’s often euphemistic: “let’s just be friends” often means “I don’t like you at all, but I’m trying to let you down gently and not come off as a jerk.” Assuming your goal is to form a romantic relationship, neither is place you want to be.
So what does length of time have to do with it? A lot. It has to do with the concept of confidence. When you are confident about something, you don’t tend to spend that much time working on it. While this isn’t always the case, as you can just be confidently employing a slow strategy, it’s the case often enough in the relationship “game” that many people feel comfortable prejudging your confidence for it. This is especially so for attractive people who have a lot of choices, and thus don’t lose much by being wrong.
And, yet, women in particular often say they want to be friends first, and friendship can take a while to develop. So how does this fit with the above? Simple: they are not talking about that type of friendship. They are talking about wanting safety, intimacy, and comfort in the relationship. They are talking about knowing that a man doesn’t just want to use them for sex. They want friendship, but not someone “the friend zone.” They want someone they can feel comfortable enough with so they feel the relationship can continue.
I hope I’m making this clear, as I’m trying to condense a lot of concepts into digestible portions. I am not saying that women are lying when they want to be friends. I’m saying they don’t want the type of friendship that leads to “the friend zone.” And one way to be in that type of friendship is to constantly avoid taking the relationship further.
I know. I’ve done it a lot. I had to learn that confidence did not mean I was sure things were going to work out, and just have the guts to try. And I will get there again once I’m finished kicking this anxiety disorder in the balls.
Your opinion is one that sounds so special on paper, and fails miserably in the real world.
Did you read the OP? Are you afraid that I’m being too hard on the OP? Seriously, this board isn’t better than the bullshit I posted. It isn’t, but not because of me, it’s because of people like you that take responses like mine and declare them bullshit because they don’t appreciate that they are frank and honest.
I don’t care if I hurt the OP’s feelings. He posted like a wishy washy guy that is going to be locked into the friendship if he keeps thinking like this. In case you missed what ‘this’ is, it’s posting a wishy washy thread on the SDMB.
If you wait too long, the woman you’re interested in might get involved with someone else.
If the woman you’re interested in likes mystery or danger or illusion or sexual tension in her romantic relationships, she’s not as likely to want to date an old friend.
If you’ve known her a long time before asking her out/making a move, she may wonder why you waited too long, and suspect that either you don’t really find her attractive, or you do but were too wimpy and indecisive to do anything about it, neither of which is a turn-on.
Why? I use the euphemism a lot myself, but I usually use it with the understanding that it’s my actions or lack thereof that put me there and not some outside force I can’t control.
All “the Friend Zone” means to me is that I have been removed from that woman’s potential dating pool. If you drew “The Friend Zone” and “People I would date” in a Venn diagram, they would not overlap. This is a distinct difference from the more simplistic “friends” set.
It’s not something I take particularly seriously myself, and I’m a little puzzled that folks think it’s intended to be some kind of excuse or dodge.