She Said She Didn’t Want To Ruin Our Friendship

How to get past your fear of rejection to turn your girl friend into a girlfriend.

In this video coaching newsletter I discuss an email from a 24-year-old viewer who has been stuck in friend zone for five years. He admits he was a total beta male in the past and got stuck in platonic friend zone due to many awkward encounters where he says the opposite of what he is really thinking and feeling. They hadn’t talked in a while since she was engaged to another guy and he didn’t like them talking. However, she recently broke off her engagement and got in touch.

She is coming to see him in a few weeks, but he has been putting his foot in his mouth and saying stupid things because he is desperate for her approval. She seems to have lost interest and he is worried he will mess it up when she arrives. He asks my opinion. My comments are in bold italics like this below in the body of his email.

Well, I’ve got an email from a guy who says he’s been stuck in friend zone for like last four or five years with this particular girl. He’s 24, and he admits in the past that he was a total beta male. So I guess he met this girl right as he was going through a breakup. He basically said he was just totally clueless, didn’t even realize that she was into him. By the time he did, he had done so many unattractive things, it just completely turned her off.

She ended up getting engaged to a guy. Then the guy she got engaged to was like, “Hey, I don’t want you talking to that dude,” because obviously he could tell this particular friend was carrying a torch for her. The reality is she was into him at first. So recently she broke up with her fiance, and guess who she got in touch with? The guy who wrote the email.

I guess he’s in Canada and I guess she lives in the States or somewhere. They don’t live close together anymore for some reason. So she’s coming to see him in a few weeks and they’ve been FaceTiming. His biggest problem is she’ll ask him something and he won’t be authentic or real, or tell her something that’s not the truth, because he’s just absolutely terrified about her approval and terrified of getting rejected.

When I read an email like this, I can remember, you know, because this guy is 24, and I remember when I was like, when I was at age 22, 23, 24, I was scared as hell. I was worried about getting a girl’s approval or screwing things up. You could see that he’s really struggling with fear because they were on a FaceTime call. She says, “Do you like me romantically?” He says, “No.” Then after that, he could tell her demeanor change. She wasn’t playing with her hair as much and showing signs of attraction on their FaceTime calls as she had been. Now he’s thinking, “Oh shit, I screwed up now.”

He’s got a good email, but she’s coming to see him. He’s like, “I don’t want to screw it up,” but you know, he’s one of those guys that just gets absolutely overwhelmed with his feelings and his emotions and then does the opposite of what he really wants to do because he’s so run by his fear. So he’s coming up against that fear barrier that all of us guys have to push up against and get past if we’re to reach our full potential.

What is getting in his way now of him being with this girl romantically is just the stuff that’s going on in his head. It’s the story that he’s telling himself. He keeps talking himself out of it and talking her out of liking him. So even though he’s done well with other women, and since come across my work, now that she’s gotten back in touch, he’s like a different version, but this woman is like Kryptonite to him because he likes her so much. As the late, great Doc Love used to say, “A beautiful woman is like Kryptonite to most men because they have the power to make men just totally fall apart,” by their presence or even their interests, as most guys just cannot handle it.

When a really beautiful woman, or at least a woman that they perceive as super beautiful is into them, all those fears, those insecurities, those doubts, you don’t think you’re good enough. You’re all of us. We act consistently with how we view ourselves to be, and it doesn’t matter whether the view is accurate or not. So this guy has an inaccurate view of himself. It clouds his judgment, and it oftentimes causes him to do the opposite of what deep down, he knows that he needs to do.

I’m rooting for this guy because I know what it was like to be in that. I mean, obviously if you read 3% Man, I had lots of instances like that. It’s like, once you get past that fear barrier and you start experiencing the things you want, you have a relationship with a girl, like in this case, that is his Kryptonite. To overcome that and overcome that fear and get to a place of peace and ease, where you no longer feel worried about losing this person and you can just be natural, and she’ll want to be with you because you’re calm. Masculinity is calm at the end of the day.

That’s one thing this guy really needs to do is just practice being calm. Maybe he should meditate a little bit, maybe a half hour before he does his next FaceTime. He should just meditate. Or when she’s coming over to see him, he should probably meditate for 20 minutes or a half hour or whatever. Maybe 20, 30 minutes before she gets there, just to kind of still his mind and put him in that calm, relaxed state.

Viewer’s Email:

Hey Corey,
 
I hope you’re doing fantastic, man. I’ve got this situation with a girl, and I could use your take on it. I’m 24 years old, and I’ve been in the friend zone with this girl for about four to five years. Back then, I was fresh from a breakup, and she had my back through thick and thin. She might’ve been into me initially, but I was too caught up in my post-breakup mess to notice. I started feeling more for her as time passed, but she was pulling away, probably because of my beta post-breakup vibe.

Yeah, so he’s constantly acting unworthy. Again, what’s going on in your head? The tape that’s constantly playing. If you don’t think you’re good enough, the things you do and the things you say are going to communicate that you’re going to give the vibe off to the girl that you don’t think you’re worthy of her. Women can sense that. They can feel that.

The number one most important attractive thing that women like and men that attracts them to men is confidence. If you’re constantly communicating that you lack the confidence, you don’t feel like you’re worthy to be there, or that she’s above you somehow, or that she’s out of your league, she’s not going to want to be with a guy that doesn’t feel like he deserves to be there. Typically guys that don’t feel they deserve to be there, they often become jealous, they become insecure, they become controlling, and they’re constantly reacting out of fear that they’re going to lose this person and they end up just driving them away anyways.

I believe that’s one of the reasons why it’s a defense mechanism in women when they get around a guy that doesn’t. In other words, he doesn’t feel he measures up. She could sense that, she can feel that, and she’s going to back away because it’s going to turn her off.

Before stumbling onto your wisdom, I was a spineless dude, confessing my feelings in the most awkward ways possible.

I can relate. I used to do that shit a lot when I was a teenager in my early 20s. You do that enough. You’re like writing love letters or it just never, “Oh, I just think he was a friend. I don’t want to ruin the friendship.” It’s like every single one of those girls from that time in my life was like, after that happened, it’s like, “I never spoke to him again.” So the friendship wasn’t that valuable.

And I’d get the classic, “I don’t want to ruin our friendship,” response every time.

I totally get it, man. I did the same stupid shit when I was his age.

There were moments, though, when it seemed like she was waiting for me to make a move, especially at the end of our hangouts. I’d always chicken out.

Yeah, if you think you don’t deserve to be there, you’re like, “Well, I don’t want to get rejected.” So you do nothing. Then afterwards you feel horrible and you’re thinking, “I’m pretty sure she liked me. I’m pretty sure she probably would have kissed me.” At the time, he didn’t know, he hadn’t read my book. In this case, he looks for things like playing with her hair, twirling her hair around her fingers, exposing her neck, asking personal questions, getting extra close.

One painful memory is from a cottage trip where we were practically glued to each other, hand-holding, cuddling during a scary movie and sharing a bed, where we spooned and she was purposely grinding on me. Instead of going for the kiss, I did the dumbest thing ever and pecked her forehead.

Nope.

The next day, she acted like it was nothing, leaving me crushed.

Yeah, because you displayed a total lack of confidence. She’s given you every sign to say, “Hey big boy, slide it in there,” and you kissed her on the forehead like her gay male girlfriend.

Fast forward to discovering your work. I’ve read 3% Man five times and binged on your videos for the past two years.

Five times in two years, the book says 10-15, bro. As part of the reason why you’re so afraid because you don’t really know the material, remember, you’re going to learn about 7% to 8% of the book each time you go through it. So you maybe got maybe a third of the book committed to memory. So there’s two thirds of it that you don’t know, or it’s just too vague in your mind to really connect the dots.

That’s going to fill you with fear because you’re not sure of yourself, you’re not sure of what to do. If you’re trying to be the confident, best version of yourself and you haven’t taken the time, I mean, if you put the audio book on two-speed and you follow along in a digital or physical copy, you can get through it in four hours. That’s the best way to try to learn the book, especially this girl’s coming to see you.

So the more you know what to do, the less you’re going to be full of fear. When things are still vague, the concepts from the book are still vague. Yeah, it’s going to really exacerbate your being in a fearful state, which is going to make it even harder to do the right things.

Life-changing doesn’t even cover it. Now, I’ve got this great friends with benefits thing going on with one girl, but there’s always room for improvement.

Now, my friend got engaged, and we had to stop talking as per her fiancé’s wishes.

But you say he’s just a friend because the guy knew.

But she recently called off the engagement…

Oh, how fortuitous.

…And she told me she’s coming to Canada…

Oh, Canada. Communist Canada

…To visit and wants to see me (She goes to school in the states). For the past two weeks she’s been texting and calling me almost every day. She keeps telling me how she wants to see me as much as possible during her two weeks here and even named dozens of things she wanted to do with me, including watching a movie together at my place.

Ha, ha! Maybe she wants to bump and grind, but without the clothes on.

I quickly set up a solid date when she mentioned coming back to Canada, and I could tell she liked how decisive I was picking the time and place. Our FaceTime chats have been interesting – she’s constantly playing with her hair, twirling it, touching her lips, making kissing faces, and smiling.

But wait, there’s more.

But then, one night, while on the phone, she took me by surprise during a conversation and asked me if I liked her romantically.

Remember, what does the book say? Whenever you get asked a question, the best way to answer it is with another question. “Why do you ask? “Make her explicitly tell you what she’s thinking and feeling. So if she’s asking you, “Do you like me romantically?” Probably on some level, she’s wondering, “Are you just being nice or are you just being a friend? Or is there something more,” because it’s clear from the way she’s behaving on the calls that she’s definitely interested romantically and definitely looks like a rebound. I mean, she just broke up with her fiance, but if you’d read the book 10-15 times, you would have been better prepared.

I was stunned and said no…

What you could have said, “Do you like me romantically?” Like, “What do you mean? What do you ask? Why are you saying that? Are you saying you have a crush on me? You’ve always wanted my sexy body. What are you trying to tell me? Do you like me romantically?” “Well that depends. It depends.” “On what? Whether or not you’re a good kisser, I don’t know, we’ll find out when you get here. I’m looking forward to it. Play your cards right, you might get a little kissy-poo. We’ll see.”

…And shit the bed.

Which obviously what he actually did.

Since that night, our calls have been good, but she has mentioned that we are great friends more often and doesn’t play with her hair and lips anymore. Did I fuck up my chances?

Well you said you shit the bed, so I don’t know what else you said and did, but if you said no and shit the bed, you probably said no. It wasn’t what you were really thinking and probably went into this long diatribe.

The reality is, when people lie, this is a good tell for you. If you ask somebody, did they do this or did they do that? If they didn’t, they’ll just say no. If they did, they’d say yes, right? If they want to lie about it, they don’t give you a yes or no answer. They go into a long excuse.

As the saying goes, “The longer the excuse, the bigger the lie.” So if she says, “Do you like me romantically?” And he says, “No,” and he goes on his long diatribe, what it communicates to her is, “Oh he definitely likes me, but he still’s got no balls. His balls never dropped. He’s got no confidence.” That’s why she starts using the F word, the great friends thing.

I’m confused and nervous about seeing her.

Well, she’s coming to see you whether you like it or not. This is what you wanted. The reality is, that the kiss test that’s in the book, if you’re hanging out with her and she’s close to you, whether it’s the beginning of the first date or towards the end of the first date or the middle of it, it’s you look for the kiss test, if the signs are there that she’s ready to be kissed, this is all laid out in the book for you, dude, so there’s no reason to fear getting rejected when you know the kiss test.

If you only read the book five times in two years, yeah, that’s why you’re going, “Oh, I don’t know what to do,” because you don’t know the material yet. All this time to learn the material and you’ve been half-assing it. So in between now and whenever it is that she comes to see you for hours with the audio book on two-speed, follow along in a digital or physical copy, you can get through it. You have no excuses to get through the book.

Several more times when she’s playing with her hair, she’s extra close to you. She’s touching you. She looks at your lips when you’re doing the kiss test. It’s like, you’re not going to get rejected, and then you just do what you’ve been doing with this other girl. Hang out, have fun, hook up.

Your job is just to create an opportunity for sex to happen. It’s clear that her initial intent, at least, was to come and potentially have sex with you. Then when you lie to her and tell her you’re not interested, and then you go, “I shit the bed,” as you said, you probably set a lot of things that you regret. Now she’s not showing any indications of romantic interest on your FaceTime calls. So maybe you reduce the amount of FaceTime calls that you’re doing and you back off a little bit.

Like I said, I don’t know what you said. I don’t know what you did. You just said, “I shit the bed.” So I have to assume you probably said a lot of things that reverted right back to the old behavior. She was like, “Oh, he hasn’t changed at all.”

I’ve already told myself I will kiss her on one of our dates when I see her, but I am terrified of getting rejected and losing her forever. I guess I don’t have a choice.

Dude, you pretty much almost lost her forever and she’s never was yours to to have or to to lose anyways.

So Corey, with your pro knowledge, I’m torn. I’ve had strong feelings for this girl for years, and I feel like she can see that I’m not a little bitch anymore…

Well, it looks like you kind of acted like a little bitch in the call again.

…And sees me as boyfriend material.

Bro, you haven’t even seen her yet. You don’t know that.

Any feedback would be awesome, man.

Thanks,

Bob

Well, I’ve told you what you need to do. She’s coming to see you. You’ve got a date set up. Just hang out, have fun. Hook up.

Like I said in the beginning of the video, good thing for you to do would be to meditate before your FaceTime chats with her, and also to meditate before you get together in person. Also, if you’re going to be super nervous, you should be doing what the article How Men Can Have Multiple Orgasms says to do so. If you blow your wad right away, you can keep on going to plow her strawberry fields properly. That’s what I would do if I were you.

This is so easy. This is such an easy setup. It’s like tee ball if you ever play tee ball when you were a kid. You put the ball on the tee and all you have to do is swing straight and hit the damn thing. That’s what this girl has done. She’s put the ball on the tee and is rooting for you to knock it out of the park.

So stop acting like a bitch, dude. Read the book, learn the information. Get through the book as many times as you can before she arrives so you know the information better. That will help you stay calmer, which is what you need to be. The reason you’re not calm right now is because in two full years of studying my work, you barely got through the book five times. That’s a half ass piss poor effort. That’s not somebody that’s serious about their success. That’s somebody that’s lazy and looking for shortcuts.

If you’re tired of being stuck in friend zone for four or five years, you will change your approach. Why? Because if you keep doing what you’ve always done, you will continue to get what you’ve always got. That’s definitely something to think about.

So, if you’ve got a question or a challenge and you’d like to get my help, go to UnderstandingRelationships.com, click the Products tab at the top of your screen and book a coaching session with yours truly. Until next time, I will talk to you soon.