Escape The Friend Zone

By Gary Jackson

We told you to avoid the friend zone, but you went ahead and fell into it anyway. You somehow managed to become buddies with the woman you wanted to pick up. Escaping this zone is difficult. From the get-go, women classify you either in the “friend” or ”boyfriend” category, and they rarely see you as anything else once you’ve been categorized.

This is where our helpful hints come into play. While she may not be quick to move your name from the “friend” list to the top of “boyfriend” list, it is not an impossible feat to accomplish.

Before you try to escape the friend zone though, think hard: There is a chance you'll lose her altogether if things don't go as planned. If she's already a big part of your life, you may want to consider moving on to someone new and keeping her as a reliable wingwoman to help you out.

Still game? Then consider your advantages: The good news is that you don’t have to deal with all that tricky getting-to-know-her business. You'll have insight into what she's interested in and what she's looking for in a man, and you can use that knowledge to steer her away from potential rivals.


Treat her like a woman, not a friend
Chances are you're overlooking her as a woman. You might not treat her exactly like a male buddy, but things between the two of you are relaxed… too relaxed. While this situation may feel good, in reality, it doesn’t work to your advantage since there is very little room here to make her feel special.

Get out of the zone: Be a gentleman more often. When walking, offer her your arm; open doors and pull out chairs; give her the occasional compliment; avoid blatantly checking out other women in front of her. Of course, don't go overboard and venture into sap territory; that would keep you firmly inside the friend zone.


Step up the flirting
Now that you're treating her less as a buddy and more like a ”real girl,” introduce more flirting into the relationship. This has to be discreet, though. Going from her friend to a leering pervert in the space of one day is not how it's done.

Get out of the zone: Start with the simplest of things: Hold her gaze for longer than you normally would and focus more attention on her in conversations. Spend more time trying to make her laugh in a way that encourages one-on-one banter (as opposed to just goofing off like you would with a friend).

Over time, this can be expanded to include flirting of the pickup variety. Your advantage here is that you can easily read how well she is taking all this and adjust it as necessary. Also, she won't immediately put up the ”stop the pickup” barriers, meaning there's a greater chance she’ll enjoy it and reciprocate.

Break the touch barrier
Encourage more physical flirting. In fact, you've probably already broken the touch barrier without realizing it by giving her your arm, guiding her into a seat, etc.

Get out of the zone: The key is to touch her consciously so it promotes positive thoughts in her. Touching her arm during conversation, putting your hand on the small of her back while waiting at the bar, brushing something out of her hair... small acts like this can build up an air of intimacy that she finds desirable.

Use your friends
Within your group of mutual friends, there may be people who think the two of you make a good couple. If so, use them. These helpers should be women -- guys, after all, are useless at subtlety.

Get out of the zone: Encourage these girlfriends to draw attention to your more attractive traits. Remember: At some point your target has considered whether you could be a potential partner or not. So, the aim of her friends' peer pressure is to remind her of the good qualities she noticed in you when you first met.

As well as encouraging her, your helpers can also feed you information that is beneficial to your cause. They can tell you if she is open to a relationship right now or if she's bored on Saturday nights and wants someone to take her out.

Encourage dating behavior
Being trapped in the friend zone, you aren't able to spontaneously ask her out on a real date. Doing this can disrupt the status quo and spook her. Instead, find ways to date her by proceeding in a covert way.

Get out of the zone: A date is essentially a relationship interview -- a chance to show off your best side in the hopes that it’ll lead somewhere. A good way to do this with a friend is to take up a shared hobby. This allows the two of you to spend some exclusive time together and she may notice something in you that she overlooked before.

Going for drinks or a meal afterward reinforces the dating atmosphere. Again, don't be too eager; your aim is make her want to spend this alone time with you and lead her to suggest more “dates.”

Change something about yourself
Familiarity breeds contempt. Well, in the case of friends, it may not exactly be contempt, but shaking up something about yourself may cause a “wow” moment in her and stir up romantic feelings.

Get out of the zone: Make positive changes to yourself that will make her see you in a new light (being friends, you should have some idea of what she thinks is positive). A new haircut or a new wardrobe could catch her eye. Or by displaying a more confident attitude around her, it might force her to rethink whether you're in the ”friend” or ”boyfriend” category.

Exercise some commonsense and subtlety, though. If she says she likes a new band, don't rush out and buy all their albums, merchandise and tickets to their next gig -- that just comes across as pathetic.

Make her want you
These steps are just a warm up. Following them will cause her to rethink your friendship and open up the possibility of something else. They will edge you toward the limits of the friend zone, but it's up to you to get over the barriers.

Sooner or later, as in all dating ventures, you have to make your move… something you should’ve done when you first met her.