Harry Houdini was a well-known magician who was especially famous for his escape acts during the early 1900s. He escaped straitjackets, nailed and roped packing crates, and even sealed caskets. Although Houdini is one of the most famous escape artists of all time, I am willing to bet there was one thing that even he might have failed to escape from: the friend zone.
It is that time in the school year that people have been putting off for months. “I’ll tell her that I like her after fall break” or “I’ll ask him to semi-formal because that’s the only date party where I want to bring a real date anyway” are the types of thoughts that drift through the minds of Creighton students constantly. But your relationship deadlines are whooshing by you and you still haven’t done anything about turning your friendships into relationships. It’s time to step up to the plate and tell people how you really feel so that you can get out of the friend zone for good.
The friend zone doesn’t sound like a terrible place to be when you first hear about it. It sounds like a place where someone is always willing to go halvsies on a Twin Pop with you, or help you scratch that itchy spot on your back that you can never quite reach. But don’t be fooled by the wholesome name; the friend zone is a not-so-fun and sometimes even excruciating place to be.
For those of you who don’t know, the friend zone is what you are in when you find yourself having romantic feelings for someone who only sees you as a buddy. It is also the place where daydreams shrivel up and hopes are quickly soured. Luckily I am going to give you some tips on how to get out of the friend zone before it turns you bitter.
You could ask her best friend if she thinks of you as anything other than a friend, but doing that seems a lot like being back on the tetherball court in elementary school. And it also can cause more communication confusion than a game of telephone.
If you ask a girl’s friend if the girl you are interested in likes you “like that,” and she actually doesn’t, those two girls are probably going to put their heads together to come up with a plan to let you down in a way where you think there might still be a chance. This is bad because hearing something like “she doesn’t want a boyfriend right now” or “she just wants to have fun first semester” makes it seem like she would want to date you in the future.
This may be the case, but if you hear this you probably just need to move on. If you are told something along those lines, people aren’t doing it to be cruel, they probably just think they are sparing your feelings. But let’s face it; if a girl really liked someone, she wouldn’t set up timelines where she thought she should be single. She would just say that she liked him too and then move forward in the relationship.
The best and really only way to truly escape the friend zone is to be blunt. Come clean and tell the person how you really feel. This probably isn’t what most people in the friend zone want to hear, but if they were more assertive with their feelings, they probably wouldn’t be in the friend zone in the first place.
Many people say they don’t want to be that forward because it will “ruin the friendship” but let’s be real, if you are having romantic thoughts about a person and your head is consumed with those feelings whenever you hang out, the friendship has already been ruined.
If you are truly terrified of being rejected look for some clues in how the person talks and acts around you. If the person you are lusting after constantly refers to you as a “bestie” then you might have officially been forever friended.
Also if the person often discusses with you his or her feelings about someone else, you are definitely viewed as a friend. If this is the case and you truly can’t muster up the guts to say something to the person, as hard as it may be you need to shelve the feelings and find someone new to focus on.
Think of the friend zone as one of those cold nights in your childhood where you wake up and really need to use the bathroom. You spend a great deal of time debating if you should get up from your comfortable bed and risk seeing monsters by running down the dark hallway or if you should try to ignore the feeling and go back to sleep. The longer you wait, the stronger the feeling grows until you are miserably uncomfortable. Finally you decide to throw back the covers and take some action. When you finally get it out of your system you feel a great relief and you think to yourself “Wow, I should’ve just done this right away.”
Had you waited in bed and kept trying to hold it in, you could have ended up making a huge mess of things. Extremely long example short: Act now, don’t put it off any longer! The longer you wait, the more painful it will become for you. Confront your fears and let her know that you want out of the friend zone.