HealthyGamerGG - Is It Possible to AVOID the Friendzone?

Episode Date: March 9, 2023

Dr. K discusses the friend zone, emotional activation, exposure, and attachment styles, providing practical advice for building fulfilling relationships. 🤝 Whether you're struggling with unrequited love or seeking to improve your relationship skills, this podcast is for you. 🙌 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, we're going to talk about something that is a highly contentious, highly challenging and really interesting subject. How to avoid the friend zone. The friend zone is a really contentious topic, especially between men and women, because for a lot of men, they're really frustrated by being friend zoned. And a lot of the advice out there is about how to get out of the friend zone. How can I take this platonic relationship and convert it into a romantic relationship? Unfortunately, that doesn't work very well, especially because,

a lot of women hate being girlfriend zoned. So what they sort of see is a platonic relationship and they have no interest, they value that platonic relationship, and they actually have no interest or will actively resist any kind of romantic relationship. And this leads to a lot of frustration usually on both sides. And what I tend to see a lot, which is actually really, really scary, is that this is a repetitive cycle, especially for some men, where we'll kind of see these these kind of situations where, like, I was reading a post the other day, for example, where someone was saying, I feel like every time I get really attached to a woman, dot, dot, dot. And the interesting thing about these posts, if you talk about people who are frustrated with

the friend zone, is they start with, I am really attached to this woman. I had this person who was a friend, and I started to get feelings for her, and then here's all the aftermath that happened. And then the question kind of becomes, okay, how do I get out of the friend zone, which doesn't tend to work very well. So it's really frustrating because, first of all, people will find themselves in this cycle over and over and over again that a lot of the advice about, you know, how to kind of get out of the friend zone doesn't seem to land very well. And furthermore, it kind of runs against the interests of the person that you actually have a friendship with.

And so this can be incredibly frustrating. And what I'd love to do today is to teach you a little bit about, first of all, like the science of love and to understand why we catch feelings. But But most importantly, to help you all avoid getting into a situation where you actually have romantic feelings for someone who's a friend. And you may say, but hold on a second. Like, first of all, is that possible? And secondly, like, but I really like this person and I really want to create a relationship with them. And we're going to dig into all of those things. Hey there.

Thanks for watching. And I'm glad these videos have been helpful. A lot of times I'll read the comments and see people asking, well, what do I actually do about it? Which is a great question. And unfortunately, the resources out there haven't been that great. which is precisely why I started at HG in the first place. HG coaches are trained on a curriculum that integrates my understanding of what motivates us, what paralyzes us, and most importantly, what leads to lasting behavioral change.

If you're ready to take the next step, HG coaches can help you build the life that you want. They've helped people build careers, help people find relationships, build networks of friends, and even do things like discover their passions or pursue hobbies. So if this sounds like something that you'd be interested in, check out the link in the description below. So the first thing that I kind of want to point out is that for a lot of people, unfortunately, this really feels like a cycle. Okay? So this is sort of what it looks like. I maybe I'm friends with a woman and then I start to catch feelings for her. And then I start to like, you know, spend a little bit more time with her. I'm a little bit afraid of like confessing my feelings. So some people will kind of advise me to like, you know, just shoot your shot and move on kind of thing.

but that can be really hard for some people. So you end up sort of in this relationship where you're afraid of rejection. So what you end up actually doing is investing in the relationship. Well, maybe one day she'll start catching feelings for me too. Maybe if I like kind of show her that I'm such a good dude. And by the way, she will frequently say, oh yeah, I wish I could find a boyfriend that was just like you. And that's like so incredibly frustrating for someone who's their friend, right? Because you're like, well, then why don't you date me if you're looking for something like me?

There's actually really good scientific reasons for that, and a lot of frustration that we experience comes out of a lack of that understanding. So going back to the cycle. So you're like kind of investing in this relationship. A few months go by, you finally kind of like confess your feelings, right? Because things rise to a critical level where then you like vomit your love out on the other person. They experience a sense of whiplash. They reject you.

You then feel terrible, which by the way, when you get rejected by someone, especially in a situation of unrequited love. It causes all kinds of damage to your self-esteem and disorganization of your thoughts and stuff. It's actually quite traumatic. And so then you spend some amount of time recovering for that, right? So like now you invested six months in the relationship. Now you're kind of damaged. Now three months go by for you to like put yourself back together.

And then you meet someone else. You sort of are friends with them again. And then like the whole cycle repeats. And the real problem is that every time you kind of like a friend's own relationship, falls apart, you've invested like nine months or a year or even more of your life that you can never get back. And as the cycle repeats over and over and over again, there are some people out there who are like in the friend zone so often that four years will go by, five years will go by. And they're like, I don't understand why I can't find a relationship.

So what I'd love to do is help you all understand a little bit about what's going on in the friend zone, explain a little bit about the science of love, and also tell you all how to to avoid that situation and really open yourself up for a relationship. So let's start with a really, really interesting study. So researchers did something really cool, which is they took a group of men and they split them into two groups. And what they did is they sent one group on a stable, low height bridge to have some kind of romantic interaction with a woman.

They took the second group of men and they sent them to a very, very high altitude, rickety bridge. Okay? So the only difference in this experiment is that one bridge is like safe and stable, the other bridge is like kind of scary. And the researchers actually found something really, really interesting, which is that any kind of emotional activation on the part of especially men leads to more romantic feelings. So this has nothing to do with attractiveness. It has nothing to do with how pretty they are or like sexual marketplace value or any of that crap, which is mostly pseudoscience, by the way. what they really found is that the more emotionally active a man is, the more likely they are to

experience romantic feelings. Now, a lot of women can be this way too, but this specific study was focused on men. So what does that mean and what does that explain? So the first thing is that when you have a platonic relationship between a man and a woman, what a lot of women will do is share a lot of emotions, right? So this is like an emotionally intimate relationship where we can cry together, we can like talk about our deepest, darkest fears. And for a lot of women, they will interpret this as friendship. This is what friends do. Friends are emotionally intimate with each other. The cultural and conditioning experience of most men is that emotional vulnerability doesn't necessarily come with in any way, shape, or form any kind of like platonic interaction, right?

So for a lot of men, and this is what the research kind of supports, is that any sort of emotional interaction increases the kind of romantic bond. Because keep in mind in terms of the high altitude rickety bridge, it's not like a romantic situation, right? It just evokes fear and other kinds of emotions. But the experience of any sort of negative emotion, especially for men or vulnerability, can lead to sort of a romantic feeling. So now we can see one really important thing, which is when two people are emotionally intimate, that some people are actually okay being emotionally intimate without it sort of leading to romantic feelings, whereas other people, the more emotionally intimate they are,

the more they correlate that with romance. The second thing that we're going to talk about is that you can really only emotionally invest in one person at a time from a romantic perspective. So there's like research that sort of shows that basically if you're like romantically into one person, then it's hard to become romantically involved with someone else. Now, I know that there are a lot of like TV shows out there

and things like that that show these love triangles as if they are standard. But if you really look at the research, like usually what happens is like you start falling out of love with one person before you fall in love with someone else. If you look at like research on affairs and things like that, what you tend to find is that falling out of love actually proceeds falling in love with someone else.

And if you sort of think about it, right, so if you're in love with one person, someone else could be in love with you and you'll be completely oblivious to it because you have no space for them. So the real challenge with sort of girlfriend zoning or having romantic feelings for a friend of yours is that while you are emotionally invested in that person,

and reciprocity is like completely separate, so we're not even talking about that yet. You don't have the space in your life to fall in love with someone else. And this is what leads to that kind of cycle and what leads to so much wasted time because once you start catching feelings for someone, then it's going to be really hard to catch feelings for someone else.

And the more that you stay kind of connected to that relationship, the worse off things are going to get. So once you catch feelings, what determines whether those feelings will kind of grow or what determines like whether those feelings will shrink? So this is where the first thing that we kind of talked about was that emotional activation, which can be any kind of emotion, by the way. So what tends to happen is once you start catching feelings for someone, even if you like listen to her, complain about her ex-boyfriend, if that's like emotionally, empathically engaging for you, you will fall more in love with them. The second thing that's important to note is that the more exposure you have with someone that you have romantic feelings for, the more likely those feelings will grow.

So now we see like another really interesting implication with the friend's own relationship, which is that if I have romantic feelings towards you and you don't have romantic feelings towards me, the more time we spend together, the more my romantic love will grow and the more neutral yours will remain, right? So this is really important because we don't really understand, like, this is not something that we get, but this is scientifically sort of true, which is that once you start on the path of love, more time together increases that love. But it's not like spending one year together. if one person is in love and the other person isn't in love,

spending one year together is not going to like increase the amount of love on both sides. And this is something that's really easy to understand if we think about a mutual or reciprocal love, right? When you fall in love with someone and they fall in love with you, it's kind of like intense and you guys want to spend more time together. Y'all are hanging out all the time. And the more time you spend together, the more in love with each other you fall. Now take that scenario and just move it to a situation of unrequited love. where when one person is love, the exposure still increases that love. But for the person who feels like this is a platonic relationship, it's never going to qualitatively convert a platonic love

to a romantic love. And the third aspect that we're going to talk a little bit about is actually attachment style. So this is one reason why I think so much of the advice around the friend zone doesn't land. If you look at it, a lot of people will say, oh, if you keep on getting friend zoned, just do this. or just do this or if you do this, like this is what you got to stop doing and this is what you got to start doing. Everyone will give generic advice. What people, I've never heard a single person

give advice about the friend zone with any kind of consideration that the advice needs to be tailored to the way that you form relationships. So the science of attachment theory is like the science of like how human beings form relationships. And one central tentative attachment theory

is that not all human beings form relationships in the same way. And so if we look at the science of attachment theory, what we discover is that depending on your attachment style, you're prone to fall in love in certain kinds of ways. So one example is if you have an anxious, ambivalent attachment style, which is sort of what we kind of think of as someone who's like, afraid of rejection, maybe low self-esteem, you're kind of like hypervigilant to what other people think about you.

You're really worried about relationships. You stress a lot around relationships. And if you do this, what we actually discover is that the more ideal this person seems to you, the harder it is to let them go. And you may kind of scratch your head for a second and say, well, hold on a second. If this person seems more ideal to me, wouldn't that make it harder for anyone to let go? And this is what's kind of bizarre, but the answer is actually no. Different people can let go of ideal things because they feel. more secure in themselves. And the more secure in themselves they feel, the more able they are to,

like, let something good go. The other really interesting aspect of anxious, ambivalent attachment is that part of the reason these people feel so ideal to you is because you don't have other people in your life, right? So what anxious and ambivalent attachment people will do is they will form tight relationships with a very few number of people. And I'll put it to you kind of simply. Like, let's think about it this way. Let's say I'm hanging out with 10 different women. How perfect will any one of those women seem? Let's say I'm hanging out with one woman.

How perfect will that woman seem? And this can be reversed for men and women too, where even if I'm a woman and I'm hanging out with 10 different dudes and I have 10 different relationships, platonic, romantic, flirting, whatever. But if I only, if there's like really only one dude in my life, it's way easier to get romantically attached to that person and idealize that person.

So this is what's really tricky is even this process of friend zone, we begin to see that some of the way that even you were raised can influence why you get into the friend zone. All this stuff once we start to put it together can paint us a clearer picture. The first is that you may not have too many women in your life. And then what happens, or men, then what happens is you start hanging out with one person. The more that you hang out with one person, the more other people leave your life and the more this person's estate. esteem rises in your eyes. As you start to catch romantic feelings, now suddenly each of your interactions means different things to both of you. The more that you become emotionally vulnerable with this person, the more romantically attached you become, whereas for them it's just a

friendship. So even one shared experience is affecting the two people in very different ways. The other problem that we tend to run into is as we get romantically involved with people, we increase our exposure to them. And we know that increased exposure when you're in love leads to stronger feelings of love. And as we put all of these things together, what you end up doing is investing in a platonic relationship with a romantic idea in mind. The more you invest in that relationship and the less reciprocity there is, the more resentful you become and the more you actually like cut out other things out of your life. and then you wind up in the friend zone. You end up losing six months, nine months or a year. So now the question becomes, okay, fine, let's assume that this is true. There's a lot of, like,

nuance and science behind this that maybe people don't understand. I know that, like, in the dating world and stuff like that, everyone is talking about alphas and betas and stuff like that. That stuff has basically been scientifically debunked. It's not scientifically valid, okay? So now the question becomes, okay, so what should you do about it? And this is where I want to come back to where most people's story starts, which is, I've caught feelings for this person, now what do I do? And that's the kind of thing where oftentimes when we see people like talk about it when they reach help, it's not when they first catch feelings. It's when the feelings have grown so much that it kind of becomes overwhelming. This is sort of a situation of like, imagine like weeds

in your garden. If you leave those weeds untended in your garden and they grow and they sprout, what are they going to do? They're going to start to. choke out all the plant life that you want. They'll be so big and their roots will be so deep that it takes so much effort just to like tear them out. So oddly enough, what we actually want to help you all do is avoid catching feelings in the first place or the second that you find that you catch feelings that you alter your behavior to prevent this situation from happening. So this is where the first thing that we need to do is be emotionally aware, right? So this is why a lot of the stuff that we do at HG, like our community event right in the feels, or what we try to do in like group coaching or personal coaching is we help raise people's EQ or emotional quotient.

We help people like understand their feelings more and be aware of their feelings more. And most importantly, we help them once they're aware of their feelings, not let their feelings control their actions. So what you need to do is the moment you start to have romantic feelings for someone in your life, the natural idea, is to hide these, right? Because, oh, this person is just my friend. And if I tell them, like, they're going to reject me. And we're just friends and girls don't like to be girlfriends. And so I can't say anything. And this is where actually you can say something. And what you can say can be really, really impactful, helpful, and actually maintain the friendship. So the moment you notice that you're catching feelings for someone, what you should talk to them about it. And this is

what you can say, hey, so I know we've been friends for a little while, but I'm starting to notice like some kind of romantic feelings. What do you think about that? Right? So have a conversation with your friend. I know it sounds terrifying, but approach them kind of as a friend. Like, hey, like we have a relationship, right? Like, hey, I have this pile of feelings and like, what do you think we should do about these feelings? Should I suppress them? Should I let them go? Could you possibly feel the same way? Have you ever felt that way about me? And just have a frank conversation about it. You can actually give them the space to say, oh, like, this is what could happen, right? Maybe they'll say, yeah, sometimes I've had those feelings too. I've actually seen that

happen and then people will talk about, okay, how can we try this relationship or not? Can it work? Can it not work? You can have a really mature conversation and I know it sounds kind of bizarre, but the earlier on you do it, the more likely you are to actually successfully transition the relationship. Because once people have a solidified idea of what the relationship is, and that can be divergent, right? So once you've let your love for this person grow out of control, then it's really hard to just be friends. And similarly for the other person, once they've let that friendship really solidify, it becomes even harder for them to become romantic. So what I tend to see in relationships that transition from friendship to romantic love is that it usually happens within the first three months or most people will happen

in the first six months. Transitioning to romantic love later tends to, like the chances tend to go down with time. So the earlier you have this conversation, actually, the more likely it is to, like, succeed in terms of switching it over to romance. The second thing that this allows you to do is, let's say that they reject you. And they say, they're not really rejecting you, per se, and that's a whole other conversation. They're saying, hey, I'm not interested in this relationship. So this is a really, really key fork in the road. Because at this point, what you absolutely need to do is say, okay, fine, thank you for letting me know. I think I need to take a step back from some of our interactions while I sort through these feelings.

And so this is where someone may say, oh my God, does this mean you're abandoning me as my friend? Am I losing my friend? No, they're not losing you as a friend. Honest to God, they're not. You just need some time away from them to sort through your feelings, and then you can let them know like, hey, this friendship matters to me a lot. I need to like sort of take care of some of these romantic feelings kind of on my own. And once I've done that, I'm happy to re-engage. I need some time as your friend. Now, this is a really, really important step. Why?

Because of everything that we've talked about in terms of the science. So once you step out of the relationship at month two, you kind of like take a step back, those romantic feelings will actually wilt over time. Because remember, that increased exposure intensifies romantic feelings. The second thing that's going to happen is as you take a step back from them, that emotional vulnerability and that emotional activation will also decrease. and that emotional activation is what leads to these feelings of romantic love. The third thing that will happen, and this is really, really, really important,

is that you will create the space in your own heart, mind, biology, gonads, wherever. We don't know where it works, but we sort of know this scientifically. You will create the space to form romantic attachments with other people. And this is what's really important. Once you create that space and you don't intensify the love, your friend, you can actually like fall in love with someone else. And once you fall in love with that person, hopefully you can sort of like try this whole thing again, then you can actually go back to your friend and you can resume the friendship without catching feelings for them.

So I know it sounds kind of bizarre, but this is like actually works. There's actually a lot of science behind this stuff. And the problem that a lot of people have with the friend zone is they don't understand. It's not just about falling in love initially. It's about the way that as you engage with this person, what happens to your sensation of love? It intensifies. It builds up, builds up, builds up. And then we confess. No one who's in the friend zone has a casual conversation about being in love, right? It's always a confession because those feelings have grown so much that they become overwhelming. I can't resist them anymore. And now I must confess my love. And then this other person is like blindsided by it. And then they reject you. And then you feel really hurt.

And you've invested six months. And then you're damaged and your thoughts are disorganized. And you're sense of self is disturbed, your self-esteem is in the pits, and then you spend six months recovering from that. And by the way, there's someone else on around month four or month five that starts to listen to your problems, right? They're like, oh, my God, yeah, we're such good friends, and you confess to them how much this girl hurt you, and then they listen to you and you all cry together. And what does that do?

What did we learn from the high altitude rickety bridge? Now you start to form romantic attachments with this person. But this person is your friend. And then you're like, okay, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not going to tell them. They're just my friend. You spend more time with them. You increase exposure.

You'll get closer and closer emotionally. But you can't say anything. And then the cycle repeats itself. So it sounds super bizarre. But I think the solution to the friend zone is not to get out of the friend zone. It's to never get into it. And this is where you may say, but Dr. Kay, you can't control who you fall in love with. This is what's bizarre.

actually you can. And I want you all to think about that for a second. We know so much about neuroscience. We know so much about psychology. We know about where trauma comes from. We know where narcissism comes from. We know where low self-esteem comes from. Hell, we even know the mechanism through which psychedelics create ego death in a connection to all other human beings. We know things about behavioral economics. We know things about how to predict like what the market is going to do. We know how to get people to buy Oreos. We know so many things about neuroscience and psychology. There's just one area where neuroscience and psychology falls apart, which is love. It's too mysterious, right? We can't understand it. We can understand everything else about human beings,

but we can't understand love. That's absolute BS. We actually understand love really well, and you can actually shape who you fall in love with. Now, that initial attraction you may not be able to shape, but if you really want to avoid this whole friend zone cycle, You have to start by, first of all, being emotionally aware of yourself. And the moment you have romantic feelings, you should recognize those. Second thing you've got to do is have a conversation right then and there. And that can be incredibly challenging because, oh my God, I'm afraid of rejection. It's not a rejection, right?

You're not asking them out. And this is a key part of it. You are trying to solve a problem with your friend. You were saying, hey, I have this pile of feelings. It's just feelings. Feelings will come and feelings will go. If you've been in the cycle of the friend zone three or four times, what happened to the first person that friend zoned you? Are you still pining over them?

No, those feelings go away. Then you fall in love with someone else and then you repeat the cycle. So feelings can come and go and that's okay. The key thing to understand to avoid this whole situation is awareness of the feelings, have a conversation about it early, and for you to understand what are the scientific factors that can make this stuff get out of control. And once you start controlling for those factors, you won't invest into the wrong relationship. And in fact, you will open yourself up two additional relationships that can get off on the right foot.