You’re only going to be relegated to the friend zone if you act like a friend. This seems so obvious that it doesn’t need to be mentioned. Yet, it does, guys end up in the friend zone all the time. Why? Because it’s easier to avoid rejection by acting like a friend than it is to put your ego on the line by making your intentions clear.

 

“I think you’re cute too! Like a puppy. I really value our friendship…”

 

The bitter irony is that we present ourselves as friends to avoid the pain of rejection, yet, in the long term, this causes us a lot more pain than an immediate rejection would have. Understand, the more time you spend with a girl, the more you invest in her; and when she ultimately rejects you (or you give up on courting her) you will end up much more hurt than you would have if you simply made your intentions clear from the start.

 

If you often find yourself having pleasant interactions that don’t lead anywhere sexual, or if you’ve ever had female friends who didn’t know you wanted something more, then you must learn to set the right frame for your interactions from the beginning.

 

The difference between a man-to-woman interaction and a friend-to-friend interaction can be felt in terms of how much tension is in the interaction.

 

Tension is created through factors like strong eye contact, physicality, and statements of intent. Note that too much tension can make a girl uncomfortable, but too little can make her comfortable to the point of boredom (leading to the friend-zone). You’ll want to hit the sweet spot where the interaction is exciting for the girl, but not so tense that it’s uncomfortable.

 

Some guys do create too much tension, but most don’t create nearly enough, and this is what lands them square in the friend zone.

 

Don’t make your eye contact quite as murderous as Rasputin, but you get the idea

 

If a guy and girl are just friends, sure, they’ll make eye contact. But it’s going to be polite, friendly, eye contact. A simple way to create tension and avoid the friend zone is to make strong, persistent eye contact.

 

To make strong eye contact without being creepy, you can look into a girl’s eyes until she looks away. Once she looks away, look away yourself. To be clear, this isn’t a hard rule, for example, if a girl makes nervous, darty, eye contact, it doesn’t mean you should do the same. However, in general, this is a good way to make sure your eye contact isn’t too ‘safe’, and to ensure that you’re creating some tension with your eye contact.

 

If you notice your eye contact isn’t as strong as you’d like it to be, you can use a simple exercise that helped me improve the consistency of my own eye contact. It may feel awkward to do, but it works.

 

Get in front of a mirror and stare at yourself for two minutes without pause. I get it, it’s weird, but it’s a great way for you to build your ‘eye contact muscle’. As you practice this, you’ll become increasingly comfortable with holding persistent eye contact.

 

You can also improve your eye contact in your day-to-day life. Any time you’re in public, practice your eye contact by attempting to meet the gaze of any women in the area. Look towards their eyes until they look back, and hold eye contact with them until they look away. Make sure to do so with a slight smile and if a woman doesn’t return your gaze after a few seconds, don’t stare at her.

 

Over the course of a few weeks, you will automatically make notably stronger eye contact with women than before practicing these exercises.

 

Introduce Physicality

Obviously, an interaction with a woman can’t lead to sex without physicality. Unless you know how to have psychic sex, you’re going to have to touch her eventually. Touch creates sexual tension and is something that a guy who’s falsely presenting himself as a friend will be very hesitant with.

 

Context is important regarding physicality. If you’re in a mall during the day, walking up to a girl and grabbing her to dance with her could be perceived as assault, whereas the same action in a nightclub would be totally normal. You should be able to navigate what’s appropriate using basic common sense.

 

Generally, your physicality should be relatively mild and non-invasive at first, and overtime it can become increasingly intimate. The best place to touch a girl at first is anywhere between her wrist and shoulder.

 

Your main goal when initiating physicality shouldn’t be to ‘execute’ it perfectly, but just to be physical at all. Learning specific methods for how to be physical is useless, you can only learn this from real-life feedback. Effective physicality will come naturally to you as you practice it and is based on an intuitive understanding, not logical rules.

 

You will be able to feel when a girl is uncomfortable with your touch, and you will be able to feel when a girl is receptive to y our touch. As you get both of these types of feedback, you will develop a sense of how to touch a girl and when to do so. This is something you will learn over time, and yes, it will probably be awkward at first if you’re not used to initiating physicality with girls you’ve just met. This awkwardness can’t be avoided, it’s a necessary part of the learning process.

 

Chances are, you’re playing it too safe with physicality, especially if you ever find yourself in the friend-zone.

 

Make Statements of Intent

I practiced making statements of intent as training wheels to get comfortable with letting girls know I was interested in them. A fear I had, was that women would make fun of me or tease me for letting them know I was attracted to them.

 

(This one of those fears guys don’t admit to themselves they have, you can find out whether you’re affected by this by challenging yourself to make some statements of intent. If it’s easy for you, you’re good to go. If not, this is an area that you need to work on.)

 

Women have a desire to be desired, and are in fact, turned on when a guy shows sexual interest in them. Conversely, when a guy hides the fact that he’s interested, he makes himself uncomfortable because of what’s known as persona fatigue (he’s putting on a friend persona), and thus she becomes uncomfortable too because emotions spread between people (psychologists call this emotional contagion).

 

Statements of intent are a great way to make it clear that you’re sexually interested in a girl. You can use this as a training wheel to get comfortable showing sexual intent, which is incredibly important.

 

Statements of intent are phrases that directly indicate your sexual interest in a woman. They can be as simple as, “You know, you’re really cute.” You can make bolder statements, but the principle is the same with any statement of intent

 

Some examples:

 

“You know, you’re really beautiful.”

“I bet a lot of guys fall in love with you, huh?”

“Sorry, I lost my train of thought. You’re just so attractive.” (remember, statements of intent aren't the best way to show intent, but they're the easiest way too learn to show your intent, to get a feel for the underlying principle)

 

These statements can be effective on their own because they create tension and make your intentions clear, but sometimes they can create too much tension. If you notice a girl gets uncomfortable after a statement of intent, that’s fine. Remember, you learn most by going too far- it’s like practicing shooting in basketball. If your shots are consistently long, you take note and adjust appropriately. In dating, if you make girls uncomfortable by pushing too much, you learn to adjust.

 

Importantly, making a girl a bit uncomfortable doesn’t mean the interaction is over, it just means you need to pull back and reduce the tension. I often do this by literally creating a bit more physical space between me and the girl (I take a step back). This shows her that I’m not a sociopath with no empathy, and that although I’m interested in her, I can take no for an answer without difficulty.

 

Use these friend-zone avoiding exercises regularly and you will get rejected more often, but you will also make things happen with more women. Getting rejected by women because you are clear with your intentions is uncomfortable at first, but the results are well worth it.

For more of my writing, check out: www.redpilltheory.com