HealthyGamerGG - Why You Should NEVER Confess Your Love

Episode Date: August 29, 2026

Talk to a HG Coach 1-on-1: https://bit.ly/46bIkdoDr. K's NEW Guide to Love, Sex, & Relationships is here! Order now: https://bit.ly/4dO3x0VDr. K's Guide to Mental Health: https://bit.ly/44z3SztHG Memberships : https://bit.ly/3TNoMVf Products & Services : https://bit.ly/44kz7x0 HealthyGamer.GG: https://bit.ly/3ZOopgQIn this episode, Dr. K unpacks the psychology and data behind transitioning from friends to lovers, explaining why the traditional "friend zone" is actually the most successful starting point for a romantic relationship. Moving away from the high-stakes, dramatic gestures often seen in movies, he breaks down the science of social environments, the developmental stages of attraction, and why a grand confession of love is almost guaranteed to sabotage your chances. What to expect in this episode: The Friends-to-Lovers Blueprint: Why the dreaded "friend zone" is actually the most common path to romance, with data showing that 70% of couples start out as friends. You'll also learn why you must play the long game, as the average successful transition takes 21.9 months. The Open vs. Closed Field Dynamics: How dating apps act as "open fields" where physical attractiveness is virtually the only deciding factor. In contrast, "closed fields" (like work projects or friend groups) naturally highlight deeper, highly attractive traits like humor, reliability, and shared values. Small Talk is a Red-Flag Filter: Why the primary goal of small talk isn't actually to get to know someone, but rather a crucial "safety assessment" designed to weed out catastrophic red flags before you invest your energy. Why Grand Confessions Backfire: How blurting out a dramatic, high-stakes declaration of love maximizes psychological uncertainty, panics your friend, and forces them to pull away from the friendship entirely to regain safety. The Six Destabilizing Triggers: The specific events that shake up a stable friendship and can trigger romantic feelings, ranging from supportive bonding during a personal crisis to the sudden threat of competing relationships. The One-Sided Exclusivity Trap: Why closing yourself off to other dating options while waiting around for a friend actually decreases your chances of being with them, and how third-party interest often serves as the catalyst they need to realize their feelings. The Art of Reducing Uncertainty: A practical guide to navigating the transition by systematically managing behavioral, mutuality, definitional, and future uncertainty. Dr. K explains how to make small, explicit moves that protect the friendship, giving your partner the safety to explore dating without fearing they will lose you forever. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcfwalk.ca. Hey, chat, welcome to the Healthy Gamer Gigi podcast. I'm Dr. Al-Ocinoja, but you can call me Dr. Kay.

I'm a psychiatrist gamer and co-founder of Healthy Gamer. On this podcast, we explore mental health and life in the digital age, breaking down big ideas to help you better understand yourself and the world around you. So let's dive right in. I've been doing a lot of thinking, and the thing is, I love you. What? Robin, you are like the brother to me. I'm in love with you.

What? Someone asked me a question a couple of weeks ago, can men and women be friends? And I did the mistake of doing some research and stumbled upon this paper, which blew my mind. One study of about 2,000 people found that 70% of people in relationships, they started out as friends.

And there is actually a corner of psychological research on relationships, which talks about something called the Friends to Lovers Pathway. Oh my God. you're in the friends on that's kind of exciting. Our friends to lovers, that's what I want. So what's crazy is this is actually arguably the most common way that relationships form. The problem is that we don't talk about it much. And what's really fascinating is that there is good data about how to make this transition.

What's fascinating about it is making the transition requires a skill set that very few of us even think about or even aware that these are problems that we need to resolve. But first, we're going to start with this really cool concept of why the friends to lovers pathway is so successful. And this comes down to why dating apps suck so much. In the 70s, there was a guy named Merstein who talked about something called the open field versus close field way of forming a relationship. So in an open field, it's something like a party. This is back in the 70s. You have a lot of people who don't know each other have basically no reason to interact. And what he noticed in an open field is that physical attractiveness became the most important

variable about whether people connected or not, right? I'm at a party. There's 50 people there. Who do I choose to go and walk up to? Who do I engage with? Whose jokes do I laugh at? Since I have basically very few variables to select people based on, physical attractiveness climbs to the top of the list.

But then, Mersin also noticed something very interesting, which is that. there's another way that relationships form, which is in something called a closed field. So in a closed field, people have a reason to interact. There aren't a million people there. So it's like you and I are working on a project together at work. We have to travel together for a conference. So in this situation, there's a lot of interaction that is not based on physical attractiveness. So we're hanging out together. We get to know each other a little bit. We discover, oh, we do like the same bands. We discover, oh my God, like this person totally has my sense of humor. I've met so few people on the planet whose favorite

movie is what we do in the shadows because they love vampire satire, right? Like, oh, what's your favorite genre? Vampire satire. Oh my God, I'm into vampire satire too. So in closed fields, first thing is there's an extensive amount of interaction and there's minimal competition and there are a lot of things that you get to know about a person that are not physical attractiveness. So what Merstein noticed and what a lot of psychologists believe is that actually the friends to lovers pathway is the best way to form a relationship, or most successful way to form a relationship. And shockingly enough, the friend zone is not a terrible place to be. Everyone's like you have to express your intentions at the very beginning.

And if you shoot your shot and you fail, actually no. The friend zone is the best place, arguably, and we're going to go through a lot of data, to become lovers from. But since people don't realize that, right, this is so contrary, but remember 70% of people do it this way, Since it's so contrary to what we think, this explains our attitudes right now. Because in an open field environment, which basically online dating apps are the largest open field that has ever existed. In that kind of environment, physical attractiveness is at the top, which is where we get all of these kind of red pill in cell kind of like attitudes. They're not wrong in the sense that they have the experience of, I've been on dating apps.

I swiped right 1,800 times and I got two matches. Right? That's their experience because they're participating in an open field. The problem is that if you are in the friend zone, it requires a different set of skills to be able to transition. And that's what we're going to go over today. Loneliness is in an all-time high. Sexlessness is in an all-time high. Relationships are probably in the worst state they've ever been in the history of humanity. And that's why I made Dr. Kay's guide to love, sex, and relationships. Let's talk about who you should actually date. Falling in love is sometimes one of the biggest mistakes that you can make.

You know, I started to do a lot of research about how to have like really good sex. Visit healthygamer.gagmer.g.g. slash guide to learn more. Good luck out there, motherfuckers. Y'all gonna need it. So a couple of things to understand. First is that the average, the average amount of time that it takes to transition from friends to lovers is 21.9 months. So we're talking about being in the friend zone for on average two, years before you start dating. The standard deviation on this, by the way, is 28 months, which is insane. So one standard deviation means 68% of people who transition from friends to lovers did so

between zero and 49 months. So about 70% of people may wait up to four years to transition. So first thing to understand, this is a slow process. So if you're like this guy, you're going to have to do this for a while. Second thing that also people find very shocking is the majority of people who transition from the friends to lovers pathway are not actually super into each other when they become friends. They are genuinely friends first. Okay, there's some gender difference here, but this is not a scenario. The people who do this successfully are not people who secretly fall in love with someone the first time they meet them and then they slow play a friendship for a long period of time. the majority of people, about 70% of people, are mutually not attracted, but then they get to know each other.

So that's what we need to dig into. What does knowing each other mean and what happens in a closed field? So we're going to start by understanding a romantic trajectory, so zero to romance, no friends in between. Because this will show us what are the steps that it takes to form a romantic relationship? And how are those steps different if we are already friends? So it starts with something called orientation. And this is what we call small talk. Okay. Now, I'm seeing an increasing number of people be very unhappy with small talk. They're like, man, I don't understand the purpose of small talk. Like, we sit around. We just talk about nothing for a while. Like, when do people have real conversations? Like, I don't care about, you know, what your job is or where you grew up? Like, I want to know, like, what do you feel about the existential threat of AI? A lot of us are craving deep conversations. And I really want to get to know someone. This is what's fascinating. Small talk is not about getting to know someone. Small talk is a phase where we detect red flags. That's literally what the purpose of small talk is.

It is not to get to know someone. It is to see if there is something fundamentally and catastrophically wrong with them so that we don't want to bother getting to know someone. Small talk is about safety assessment, not getting to know someone. It's about ruling people out, not ruling people in. This is person at B.O. Does he start talking about politics? Does she start talking about politics?

Are they ranting and raving about? Do they ask you about your income in the first 16 seconds of meeting them? Small talk is about ruling people out, not ruling people in. Second thing is something called an exploratory, affective exchange. Exploratory, because we don't really know yet, we're in the exploration phase. Affective means emotion and exchange. So can we get along on an emotional level? For the kids nowadays, do we vibe? Are we vibing? We chillin, right? Do we mesh? This is also not about getting to know each other. This is about like, does my sense of humor match this person's sense of humor? And the goal here is to actually reduce uncertainty. We want to sort of get a sense. We want to test the waters of, okay, if I hang out with this person more, like, how much fun am I going to have? Like, is this going to kind of work out? So it's an exploratory affect of change. We don't make. We don't make.

our most brutal joke right at the beginning, right? We make one dirty joke and we see how they play with it and then they like kind of hit the ball back and then I make another dirty joke and like that's kind of how we're like starting to vibe. Next thing, this is when really the relationship starts to form is an intensifying affective change. So now that we're vibing a little bit, now we have intense emotions that we're sharing with each other. This is when people start to say, I know we've only been dating for six weeks, but I love you babe. I can't get you out of my mind. But I don't do that on week one. I mean, sometimes I do. Maybe if I have BPD, right? Or I'm just, I've met my soulmate. You never know. But there's an intensifying affective exchange, okay? And when we do

this intensifying affective exchange, this is also the start of a relationship identity. Before I, we were doing small talk, then we were getting to know each other a little bit. Now we start to become a we. It's not just you and me, it's we, right? We start to be a couple. When we show, we are up at places, people will look at us and they will say, they will start to label us as together, right? You know, you're ever hung out with people and you're like, those two people dating or not? Once you start getting identified as a couple, once other people start judging you that way, which, by the way, very good chance that that happens before you even realize it, right? Other people are better at detecting this than we are.

That is the intensifying emotional characteristic. This is when a relationship starts to form. And then we have something called a stable exchange. This is when we becomes a unit. This is when we formalize our relationship. We get married. We have a wedding. We exchange vows. Like, whatever. We go on a honeymoon. We start taking trips together. We start to become an item. Right. We move in together. So then there's like a stable level of exchange. And so if we look at a friendship, the cool thing about a friendship is we actually check a lot of

those boxes off. Right. So we already have assessed each other for red flags because we're friends. And there may even be red flags that we may even be more willing to tolerate as friends. we sort of do the vibe check. The thing is we haven't sort of intensified our relationship and we'll get to how to make that transition. But this is the cool thing. This is why Friends to Lovers is so common because it actually checks off

two of the most difficult boxes for forming a relationship. And we start to see, and this is the cool thing about the Friends to Lovers pathway, we can start to vibe and enjoy the same things even though we may not be physically attractive to each other. So if you are unattractive, an open field is the worst place to be, and a closed field is the best place to be. Because if you look at the equation of, you know, mating potential, let's say, in an open field, attractiveness is like

all the data that you have, right? Even your profile, the parts that are not pictures on a dating app are still measures of attractiveness. I make this much money. Here's my picture with a dog. Here's my picture with a fish. Here's me with friends, right? I'm sort of signaling my attractiveness. Whereas in a closed field, you get to know someone and there are so many things like sense of humor and do we get along and do we like the same things? Do we like the same music? Is this person there for me? Are they reliable? You can't measure reliability from a dating app. You can only measure that through a friendship or relationship, right? So this is the key thing. This is why it's so successful for many people. This is why it's so common because most people are of average attractiveness is because it gives people

a lot of potential positive data about you that then factors into the equation of which attractiveness is just one variable. In an open field, it's like 95%. In a closed field, it's like 30 to 40 percent. Okay, that's not research-based. It's just what I'm stitching together. Next, really important thing. So a lot of people will confess their love for their friend. And this is one of the worst things that you can do, sabotages the relationship. Okay. And here's why. So research shows that the longer that people have been friends, the slower the transition is to dating. So some people think like, okay, I've been in love with this person for years. This is my level of love. This is their level of love. Let me try to bring them up to here. What do I have to do to get this person to fall in

love me? That's not what works, right? And we sort of know that. That's why we feel like the friend zone is such a terrible place. What actually happens is the longer you've been friends, the more slowly you transition to a romantic relationship. And here's the really interesting thing. What a lot of people try to skip when getting out of the friend zone is the exploration phase, is the dating phase. Right. So if we think about dating and exploration, like dating is exploration, right? We're like trying each other on for size. We're trying to see, can we make this work? And one of the biggest mistakes that people make is during this exploration phase where you start to date, the most important variable is preservation of the safety of the friendship. So people who prioritize preserving their

friendship are much better at making the transition out of it. So what usually happens is, baby, I love you. I can't live without you. I've loved you for years. Please love me. Love me back. Please, please, please. And then you get a lot of frustration. Oh my God, I've gotten girlfriend zoned. I've gotten boyfriend zoned. And now, since I'm not willing to be this person's romantic, significant other, they're like, sorry, babe, I can't be with you anymore. I'm going to have to block you on everything. I need some space.

I'm gone. Right? This is what people say. And that is exact. That's what's sabotaging things. Instead, this is what's really confusing. Just because you have some forms of intimacy doesn't mean that you don't need to have a first date. Explore the possibility of friendship.

And when you signal to your partner, or potential partner that your friendship is important to you, this makes people much more willing to try. So let's say we're best friends. And I'm like, hey, something weird happened. You know, I know we've been friends for years, but something like the last couple of weeks, like, I've just, like, when I see you, like, it affects me differently. I just think you're absolutely gorgeous. And I'm like, I care about our friendship. I value our friendship. But also, like, I find myself wanting to date you. Is that something that you would ever consider? But you're signaling to this person, because we're friends and we're stable in this relationship.

This is a good thing. We got a good thing going here. We don't want to actually jeopardize that. We want to explore dating. And sometimes this happens, right, where people will explore dating and they discover, okay, like this really doesn't work out. We're not sexually compatible. Actually, we're better off as friends. So if you want to make the transition from friends to lovers, you need to try to preserve the safety of the friend zone.

not shatter it and get away from it. This is what leads to success. Okay? So you want to explore, you want to try this on for size. You want to be explicit about, hey, let's like give this a shot, but if it doesn't work, we can go back over there. And I want you to think about it from the perspective of the friend and maybe you've been that, right?

Which one would you be a lot more willing to give a shot? Hey, let's give this a shot. And if it doesn't work, we just go back to what we used to do anyway. Or, hey, I need this to work. And I love you. and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. And if you say no, I have to, for my own mental, I have to pull away. I need to take some space and I'll never see you again.

I don't know what's going to happen. High amount of uncertainty, which we'll get to. Uncertainty scares people away. So the slower, the longer the friendship is, the slower you have to transition it. And we also, there are studies that show that people who have a short friendship transition in a different way. Alcohol is usually involved, not usually, but is more likely to be involved. and, you know, sudden physical attraction is more likely to be involved.

So we've been friends for, oh, I thought we were friends for maybe like six weeks, maybe two months, but then one day we're at a party, we get drunk, we end up making out, and then suddenly we're in unexplored territory. That tends to not happen as much with long friendships. Now the question is, how do we make that transition? Okay. So first thing, really cool thing. Something called diatic separation.

So let's say that we are part of a friend group. and you may notice this, right? So if you've ever been a part of a friend group where two people start dating, a key element to them starting to date is peeling off from the group, right? So I had a friend that I used to play video games with, still play some video games with.

And then we had like there was, it was clear to us that he was into this girl. And so one of the things that started to happen is when she was not playing with us, he would drop us and go play something else with her. There was a diatic separation. And then sometimes we'd all queue together. So they peel off and they go on their own and they spend some quality time together.

When I was dating my wife, we would also peel off. And someone took a picture of us at summer camp and then put it on the main screen when we walked in after chatting with each other on a picnic table for an hour and a half. We had rec time. And for an hour and a half, the two of us were just on a picnic, sitting at a picnic table just talking to each other. And we walk in and everyone goes, ooh. I thought we were friends. I still think we were just friends at that point. But there is a diatic separation.

So if you're interested in transitioning, one of the key things to do is to try to peel this person off and do some quality one-on-one-time. Okay? So invite the person out, hey, do you want to like, after we're done with the party, do you want to go grab a nightcap? Or, hey, friends are hanging out.

Hey, we're all meeting for lunch. Do you want to go for a jog before? So intentionally create some one-on-one time for you to foster a relationship. Another important point. This is something to avoid. Don't be one-sided exclusive. This is really, really, really important. So sometimes when we're in the friend zone, we're super into someone, but we won't be willing to date anyone else. So we're exclusive with our friend, but they're not exclusive with us. They're out there dating and we're like, oh my God, I love us so much. I've seen that one. Don't do that. Research shows that one-sided exclusivity does not increase. the chances of a transition to a romantic relationship. In fact, the opposite. One-sided exclusivity will decrease your chances to enter into entering a romantic relationship. And we'll see why that is because threats from third parties is one of the destabilizing factors that can actually cause the

transition. So the two of us are friends. We'll get to this in more detail. And when I start dating someone or when they start dating someone, that's when we realize, oh my goodness, there are some feelings. So in order to transition from friends to lovers, there are a set of things that can happen that will sort of trigger the transition. At the top of the list is some kind of crisis. So this is something that, that, you know, we see a lot in media where it's like police officer gets killed in the line of duty and their wife and their partner grieve very deeply. We both love this person. much. And then we bond and we start something. Would they be guilty? I feel so guilty. I'm, I'm screwing my partner's wife behind their back, but they're dead. Oh my God. Right? This is a very

common trope. But going through a crisis forms bonds. We see this all the time. Trauma bonding on the inpatient unit in psychiatry. People fall in love all the time. So one of the things that can trigger a transition is a crisis. Another thing is something that has vaguely referred to as special activities. doing something that is beyond the scope of normal activity. And for example, in Dr. Kay's Guide to Love, Sex and Relationships, where we go over a lot of stuff like this, right? One of the key elements of attraction and falling in love is for your relationship to be outside of the regular humdrum of the world.

Every day I have to wake up, I have to commute, go to this, I have to do laundry, I have to do this. But when I'm with you, that part of the world ceases to exist. It's a magical, I will show you the world shining, shimmering splendor. It's the best example, right? Like, that's literally what it's like, it's captured in Aladdin so well. So to do something special. So to really try to carve out something special or to try to really support your partner through

a crisis, these are two of the big turning points. The other thing that's really interesting is that there are six destabilizing factors that can trigger this change, okay? So one is competing relationships. But like once you start dating, suddenly this person starts treating you different. We're kind of like dating. Shut the fuck up. What? Like shut the fuck up. What were you going to tell me? Wait, um. So do you really like her? Do I love? I don't. Do you love her? Right? This person took you for granted. They're like, hey, do you have time? Like, I'm feeling bored. Like, can you come over? Like, let's hang out. And suddenly you, he's,

like start dating a girl and you're like, no, hey, sorry, I've got plans. And then like your friend becomes really, really upset with you, right? So dating someone else being threatened by a third person can trigger the transition. Related to that is something called the unexpected loss of proximity or closeness. So this is literally, we kind of know this, right? When you take someone for granted and you suddenly lose them, they're no longer like you didn't realize how great they were and how important they were to you until they're gone. Human beings do take things for granted. This is all the plot, also the plot of like 50% of romantic comedies, right?

Oh my God, I never realized that this person was the one. And they had glasses and they had their hair messed up. But they went and they got their hair done and they removed their glasses and they changed their wardrobe. And suddenly now they are a beautiful swan. And I never realized that they were the ugly duckling. Oh, my God. And now they have a boyfriend who helped them transition to a beautiful person.

And now I'm jealous. actually research shows that, yeah, that's one of them. Okay. Another destabilizing factor is sexual behavior. So when we're friends, if we do make out, you know, if we do kiss, one of those can be destabilizing to the relationship. Next thing is a change in personality. Okay. So this is huge.

Where, remember, average time is 22 months. One standard deviation goes up to about 48 months, 49 months. which means that the person you used to be when y'all became friends, let's say we became friends at the age of 21, and the person that I am at 25 is different. I'm no longer as self-conscious. I'm no longer worried about my career. Now I have a stable career. My personality has changed. I come out of my shell. I'm a late bloomer. That can trigger a transition. So when people say work on yourself, if you are someone who's in the friend zone, this is an important part, right? So this is a 48. You're runway is 48 months and what can you become in 48 months? The other thing that's interesting about this change in personalities, it can include becoming more flirtatious, right? So like at 21, I wasn't a flirt, but now I'm a little bit flirtatious. I'm a little bit playful. Is it a thing? Are we friends? Are we not friends? There's a certain amount of uncertainty there that shakes things up. So the goal isn't to get this person to love you. The goal is to shake things up again a little bit. Start to

create some of these different experiences. And one of the things that I emphasize in the guide to love sex and relationships is that relationships are about fertilizer and air and water. You don't just make someone fall in love with you. We're not trying to be manipulative, which is what a lot of the dark psychology people and pickup artists and stuff will do. No, what we want to do is understand what are the optimal conditions for a romantic relationship to grow. And then we want to teach you what those conditions are. What kind of fertilizer, partial sunlight, day, daily water, water every three days. And then as you create those conditions, hopefully the relationship will grow organically. This one's really interesting. Next to our betrayal of confidence and

deception. This is why I love research, man. What are the things that successfully cause transitions from friendships to romance? This can fracture the friendship. But literally, if you look at the data, you look at some of these studies, negative things can sometimes trigger the transition, right? I feel hurt by you. I feel betrayed by you, right? You said you were going to be there with me, but instead you were with your boyfriend. I was counting on you. I feel so hurt. I start to pull away. Then you come towards me and it's, oh, oh, I'm so sorry. Let me make it up to you. Right? So this is what's kind of interesting. I mean, everyone talks about the joys of makeup sex. But like conflict can actually trigger a transition.

Now, once these transitions are in place, there's one really important thing. Probably the most important thing to do is to reduce uncertainty. The successful transition involves reductions in uncertainty. I know it sounds kind of weird because I just said these will create uncertainty. That's correct. So you've got to shake things up. But for people to successfully make that transition, the key thing is to be to intentionally try to reduce the uncertainty. I will explain what that means.

Okay, so first thing to understand, when we're friends, we have a dynamic. Like, I know what you do, you know what I do. And for human beings, uncertainty is unsafe. If you think about who you feel comfortable with, the people that you feel comfortable with are the people that are predictable. Hey, when my friend comes over, this guy will make fun of me. This guy will be hyper competitive. This guy is pretty chill.

I know what to expect. So when we make this transition, we are starting for, a safe place of understood expectations. I know what to expect this person. As I transition into a relationship, now there's a lot of uncertainty. And if we try to reduce that uncertainty in a very targeted manner, it'll make the transition way more likely to succeed. Because uncertainty is what scares people away. I don't want to try it because what'll happen to our friendship, right? That's what we started at the top. So this is why we don't want to go from zero to 100%. So if we confess our our love, right? You know me. I'm Dr. K. Right? This is who I am. You guys are familiar with me.

You know who I am. If one day I wake up, hey, I'm Dr. K. K, this is where, today I'm launching crypto coin. This Dr. Krikti, HG coin, the only crypto coin that rises and falls with your mental health. Right, bros? I'm going to show up. I'm going to do a bunch of steroids. I'm going to show up. I'm going to be a different person. And I'm going to be looks max to Dr. Kaykoe launching my crypto coin. Yeah. Let's go, bro. If I suddenly started doing that, like even that, what I did right there was predictable because sometimes I do voices and sometimes I do ask accents and sometimes I'm satirical. And so that makes you laugh. It doesn't freak you out. So when you confess your love, what you're doing is maximizing uncertainty

because this person had no idea. And then suddenly you're like, oh my God, I love you. I can't live without you. And they're like, I don't know what to do with you. I don't know what the future looks like. I was not expecting this change from you. And now that I realize that this is changing, what else about you could have changed? What else about you did I not see? Did I not realize? How could I have missed this? Do you guys see how all of those thoughts are very scary, very uncertain,

and are not going to cause someone to go, love me too. Doesn't work. Scares people off. That's why people don't like being in the friend zone. They don't know how to transition out of it. Everything they tried to get out of it is desperate and scares people away. goal is to reduce uncertainty. So how do we reduce that? There are four kinds of uncertainty that I want

you guys to actively think about, okay? First is behavioral norm uncertainty. This is like when we're friends, there are certain behaviors that we do. And we know what we do. If I hold my hand up for a high five, you give me a high five, right? If I come in for a hug, it's a hug. But there's a lot a behavioral norm uncertainty. Do I hold the door open for you when we get into the car? When we go in for a hug, is it also a kiss? Do you grab a little bit of the tush on the backside? We don't know how to behave with each other. Another thing is like, you know, when we sit on the couch, if we're friends, I sit in my spot, you sit in your spot. If we start dating, what then? What does that mean? So this is where like, I'll tell you guys like a move that my wife made on me. So there was, it's funny.

how much we track with this. So we were at a friend's place. We were at a party. And then everyone's like crashing at my friend's place. Okay. So we're like all driving to his place. We're crashing there. And then we're both kind of into each other.

But like, you know, so we're like, we're like, hey, like I'm going to crash in this room. Where are you going to crash? She's like, I'll crash here. It's like the two of us are in a bedroom. But I'm thinking to myself like, hey, like I don't want to take advantage of her. Like we're friends. So I'm not going to make a move. So I like lay down literally on top of the covers.

And she gets. inside the covers. And I think to myself, this is the way that I preserve the sanctity of our friendship. And then she tosses and turns for a little while. And then she makes a move, which is she grabs my arm and yanks me around to put it around her. Right. So this is like a high uncertainty move. It's a really scary move to make. Like we don't know like what happens if I'm not into her. And she knows I'm into her. And we were both a little bit tipsy. And so like that's like an example of like, what do we do? Like, how do we transition? There's a whole video about early relationship touch in the guide. How do you navigate these things? And so like, that's a pretty clear signal, but it also

opens us up for rejection. So how do you deal with behavioral uncertainty? Sometimes you just have a conversation about it. Sometimes what you do is you make a small move. Sometimes you apologize. Right. So you say, hey, like, I have some feelings. Is it okay if I, can we try like dating? Can we go on a single date? Can we give this a shot? And then I can also be like, so while we're on the date, you know, it's like, I'll ask, like, like, you can reach for their hand or you can say, as y'all are walking, it's like, hey, is it okay if I hold your hand? Or I really want to hold your hand. That's pretty good. That works usually pretty well. Just letting people know how you feel like I really, is it weird if I, or you grab their hand and you say, hey, is it like weird if I do this? Right. And then this is also like

the subtle like in the 90s and 80s, there was like the move, the reach around, right, where you put your arm around them. So you put your, you drape your arm over the back of the couch and then does the person snuggle in or do they move away? There's a lot of this like testing of uncertainty. Okay. And we want to try to reduce that uncertainty. We want to make those steps small. We want to let people know, hey, if this is too much, it's not that big of a deal. They control the pace of the change. We want to reduce that behavioral uncertainty. Next thing that's really important to reduce is mutuality uncertainty. Hey, I like, I like Alice. Does Alice like me? Does she have a boyfriend? Is she into me? Hey, bro, can you talk to Alice's friend, Kathy and see if Kathy, find out from Kathy, is Alice, like, into me at all?

I'm not, why? Are you into her? Well, like, I don't know. Like, maybe a little bit, but is she into me? So, human beings are terrified of mutuality uncertainty. So one of the key things that you can do is to realize that, right? And then try to do something to reduce it. And that's going to depend on the individual scenario. So that could be something as simple as, hey, like, I really value you as a friend. I want to give this a shot. then for the other person to be like, hey, I really value you as a friend too. I'm open to giving it a shot, right? You want to reduce that mutuality uncertainty. And it's not even that you have to feel the same way. This is really important to understand. It is the uncertainty of the feelings that really freaks people out. Just think about it for a minute. What really freaks you out in relationships is that you don't know how the other

person feels. That's what's so scary about it. So actively try to reduce that. Let people know where you are. try to get where other people are. Try to match their level a little bit. Another big one, definitional uncertainty. Okay, so this is what's really scary. So if you think about defining the relationship conversation, hey, we need a DTR. Before we DTF, we need a DTR.

Defining the relationship. What are we? Are we just friends? Are we dating? Are we talking? What are we? This is what's scary. If you start dating someone,

there's a defining the relationship conversation. But there is less uncertainty in defining the relationship in dating. there is in friendship. Because defining the relationship is now complicated because there's the friendship over here and there's the dating over here. Most people who go straight into romantic dating just have to deal with this. And so people who successfully address that uncertainty, and you, once again, it's like conversation, like whole lessons on communication in the guide, right? But for you to realize that when you guys are dating, the more that y'all can feel safe with each other by reducing that relationship uncertainty.

And that's why like, that's even baked in at the beginning where it's like, hey, I have these feelings. Is it okay if we try this date? Can we give this a shot? That statement in and of itself is reducing uncertainty. And then this is really important. Future uncertainty. What happens if this doesn't work out?

Right? And I want you guys to think about this. Imagine you're at a job. So imagine you're at a job. And you get a different job offer. You get an offer to do some contract work somewhere else. Okay? And then you go to your boss and you say, hey, I got this offer.

I'm not sure what to do. And your boss says, you know what? I think you should, if you want to go for it, you can go for it. If you don't like it in six months, I'll hold your job for you. You can always come back. You can give it a shot if you want. Imagine. Just imagine for a moment what that would do for you, for you to know what happens when this

doesn't work out. What happens in the future? People ask me all the time, I don't know what to major in because I don't know what the job market will be. Future uncertainty scares the crap out of people. So the more that you can target that by even saying like, look, hey, if we break up, what's going to happen? Are we going to be friends?

What's going to happen to us in the future? What's going to happen to us in the future? Are we going to let people know that we're dating? Are we not going to let people know that we're dating? Addressing all of these issues of uncertainty makes people feel safe, makes people more likely to give a shot to the transition. And so I know people are like, oh my God, the friend zone is such a terrible place to be. What's really shocking is that it's a great place to be.

be. Statistically, getting out of it requires a skill set that most of us are never taught and half of us figure out. The other half don't. So if you're struggling with like open field kind of stuff and you're alone and you don't know how to transition out of the friendship, follow some of this stuff. And for all the other stuff about chemistry and love and attraction. Two and five Canadians will hear the words you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of

cancer. Register today at pmcfwalk.ca.ca.com. And charisma and transitioning to the next step of the relationship and engaging in healthy sexual relationships, check out Dr. Kay's Guide to love sex and relationships. Good luck. You're going to need it. Thanks for joining us today. We're here to help you understand your mind and live a better life. If you enjoy the conversation, be sure to subscribe. Until next time, take care of yourselves and each other.