How to Never Become Friend-Zoned with Girls

[Klokwurk]

Yes, exactly. Nice.

[TheBagel]

Be yourself and 99% of your problems go away.

 

This is, of course, complete nonsense, for more reasons that I could possibly articulate here. I implore you to Google "why be yourself is ****ty advice" and read just one of the many, many, many articles which go into it, in detail.

 

These are my thoughts: "Be yourself" is absolutely amazing advice, under one condition. Know what that condition is? That you're a person who's naturally happy by being themselves. You should already see why it is, therefore, useless. That's wonderful if you are naturally happy person, it's not a bad thing. I try to bring people like that into my life, because their happiness invariably rubs off on the people around them. But to say it makes "99% of your problems go away," by itself, is at best naive, and at worst it's a completely useless, callous, uncaring, and outright degrading insult that shows a complete lack of understanding for another person's problems. And it does nothing, literally absolutely nothing, to help them.

 

So please, rescind that. It's an absolute mockery of anyone facing emotional difficulties in their life. If "being themselves" was working, they wouldn't be having problems to begin with.

[oap81]

Well said couldn't have put it better.

[allcity]

I disagree! When people say "be yourself", it is great advice that can hugely help people that are working on their flaws, are mature enough to have their emotions under control and aren't incapable of handling life and social situations without all their problems and feelings exploding at any given moment.

 

'Being yourself' means not pandering to other people; not lying about what you believe and want out of life, for the sake of making someone else happy; not changing your whole way of being, just to try and fit in; not putting people on a pedestal as being the key to your happiness etc.

 

It doesn't mean you should let every thought and emotion blast out of you with absolutely no filter, or that you shouldn't work on self-improvement! It means work on your flaws, try to be better human being, be a more attractive and successful friend and partner, while also never compromising yourself for the sake of winning the race.

 

I'm sorry to say this, but to call this advice "useless, callous, uncaring, and [an] outright degrading insult that shows a complete lack of understanding for another person's problems" just hints at the extent of how important and insurmountable you (both) possibly feel that your own problems are.

 

In my experience, the people that get mad at such advice and write articles about how angry it makes them are often just incredibly frustrated with their own lives, to the point that they pity themselves, while totally missing the point of the advice, rather than the advice itself being bad.

 

I don't mean any judgement towards you. I'm just saying to try and understand the message first before shooting the messenger. It is totally possible to be yourself while also bettering yourself. The two aren't mutually exclusive and our emotional difficulties don't define any of us. Unless we want them to!

 

And in that sense, 'being yourself' is one of the best bits of dating advice anyone can give. Especially if you're wanting to have a successful, long-term relationship with another person that will take you through years of your life and the many life changes that you'll both each go through during your time together.

[TheBagel]

'Being yourself' means not pandering to other people; not lying about what you believe and want out of life, for the sake of making someone else happy; not changing your whole way of being, just to try and fit in; not putting people on a pedestal as being the key to your happiness etc.

 

It doesn't mean you should let every thought and emotion blast out of you with absolutely no filter, or that you shouldn't work on self-improvement! It means work on your flaws, try to be better human being, be a more attractive and successful friend and partner, while also never compromising yourself for the sake of winning the race.

 

See, that's all great advice! The problem is, you're not telling someone to 'be themselves,' you're telling someone to be a person that doesn't pander to others, doesn't lie about what they believe in, doesn't want to try and fit in, is emotionally mature, works on self-improvement, understands their flaws and strives to be a better human being.

 

Unless someone naturally does all of these things, you are not telling them to be themselves, even if you think you are. In fact, you're doing the exact opposite: you're telling them to systematically change every single personality trait that makes them who they are.

 

In my experience, the people that get mad at such advice and write articles about how angry it makes them are often just incredibly frustrated with their own lives, to the point that they pity themselves, while totally missing the point of the advice, rather than the advice itself being bad.

 

The advice you listed above is actually very good. But it's not 'being yourself,' unless you naturally do those things ... in which case it's very unlikely you have these problems to begin with. I'm pressed for time and cannot go into much more detail, but as I said it's naive to think that these problems will just vanish as soon as someone decides to 'be themselves.' If 'being themselves' means quitting their job, and deciding to finally pursue their dream of sitting on the couch all day smoking pot and eating cheerios, it's very unlikely any sort of improvement will result. But that's exactly what would happen if they followed your advice, which you don't seem to realize.

 

The only problem with 'be yourself,' is that what you actually mean is, 'be yourself. Oh, and get your **** together while your at it.' So just skip the whole 'be yourself' bull**** and tell people how to get their **** together instead. It has a much greater likelihood of working than just assuming they have some perfect personality that will pop out into the world as soon as they 'be themselves.'

[stayClimbing]

I have a huge problem and that is I get overly attached or clingy or needy. How can I avoid acting like this? It is what lead to the demise of pretty much every girl I have ever dated and I haven't solved this dilemma yet...

[HeatherB]

Be your best self. Don't be your cheeto eating unshaven insecure self in a bad mood. How bout that?

[allcity]

@TheBagel

Ha ha, I totally see where you're coming from with this and do agree with you to a point. But it still comes down to a case of taking the advice far too literally, not reading the subtleties and playing slightly with semantics. Each to their own though. Whatever works.

 

@stayClimbing

Self-control and self-esteem! Nothing more, nothing less. When you feel yourself freaking out and heading towards making an insecure move, recognise it and don't act. And keep working on your self-esteem, so that you don't feel the need to be so clingy to anyone.

[Purusha]

See, that's all great advice! The problem is, you're not telling someone to 'be themselves,' you're telling someone to be a person that doesn't pander to others, doesn't lie about what they believe in, doesn't want to try and fit in, is emotionally mature, works on self-improvement, understands their flaws and strives to be a better human being.

 

Unless someone naturally does all of these things, you are not telling them to be themselves, even if you think you are. In fact, you're doing the exact opposite: you're telling them to systematically change every single personality trait that makes them who they are.

 

I totally disagree that the advice tells them to change every single personality trait, it's advising you to change the way that you think - not who you are. Changing the way that you think may open new doors for you and make you see things differently, but it doesn't change your personality!

 

Deciding to be yourself usually entails getting rid of false premises, not judging how you're doing by relying on other people's opinions, getting rid of out moded or learned ways of thinking that aren't helping you or trying new behaviour that might get you what you want to achieve is a decision, but for most people is a process of learning and experimenting that doesn't happen magically overnight.

 

Every problem is unique and there are so many variables that to advise someone on exactly what it is that might help them would often involve a novel, so it might be quite unrealistic to expect this depth, but I also think that it's good to keep in mind that this advice can be misunderstood and probably needs breaking down more to specifics.

[Blue Spiral]

I am not the kind of man that women want to date.

 

I like being myself, and thus don't want to be.

 

Ergo, being myself will not lead to success in this area.

[Purusha]

Fair dos, as long as you're comfortable with your choices that's cool.

[goodfoot]

Changing the way you think does change the way you are.

[oap81]

This is the best way to look at it. No one goes to a job interview and actually is themselves the actual true selves. Same thing while going out and meeting people. You put the best foot forward so to speak.

Be your best self. Don't be your cheeto eating unshaven insecure self in a bad mood. How bout that?

[TheBagel]

@TheBagel

Ha ha, I totally see where you're coming from with this and do agree with you to a point. But it still comes down to a case of taking the advice far too literally, not reading the subtleties and playing slightly with semantics.

 

Think about it this way: when someone has no idea what you actually mean, what they hell are they going to do except take it literally?

 

Once you understand that people don't innately associate 'be yourself' with these concepts of self-improvement, striving for a better life, and not pandering to others, you'll see why it's such terrible advice. Especially because the majority of people don't elaborate. They say things like "be yourself and 99% of your problems will go away," like it's some kind of emotional panacea. For people who are already emotionally healthy, perhaps. But the people who need help most have no idea what you're talking about.

 

Yeah, yeah, yeah, "you're being too literal, of course they know what I mean." Food for thought: what does 'be yourself' mean to someone who has absolutely no concept of who they are? Think about that.

 

Changing the way that you think may open new doors for you and make you see things differently, but it doesn't change your personality!

 

It definitely, definitely does. It's not even possible to change how you think without changing your personality in some way. But that's not a bad thing.

[Purusha]

Meh, I disagree - I think it changes the way that you are, not who you are. If I choose to change the way that I am it doesn't mean I change the fact that my favourite colour's blue, I think classic rock's fabulous, that I love art, and that I have a soft spot for a man with an irish accent - those are things I consider elements of my personality, not the way I behave and think.

 

Course, everything's mutable anyway and if you change the way that you behave you might also change your opinion on something, but I don't think it's a mutually exclusive thing, but that's just my experience.

[goodfoot]

Changing the way you behave and think can definitely change your personality. I'm still having trouble seeing where you are drawing the line between 1. how you behave and think and 2. who you are. The last thing I would be concerned about with a potential love interest would be there taste in music or favorite color. All the things you mentioned are subject to change anyway. If you got burned emotionally by a bunch of guy's with Irish accents, don't you think that preference would change? Even if it wouldn't change for you, it would definitely change for other people.

[allcity]

@TheBagel

You're right! I guess the advice without proper explanation could very easily be misunderstood. Well put. Definitely food for thought.

[Purusha]

The distinction I'm making is where I don't believe that your way your thoughts process are the essence of who you are, I think that your personal characteristics and nuances are a separate entity and that although they will change over time as we all do I don't think they're necessarily as a direct result of alterations to the way that you think about a subject or area of your life.

 

I'm trying to think of an example to explain myself better as I don't think I'm communicating this particularly well - for example, a guy thinks he's unlucky, never catches a break, never wins at anything, and so doesn't try and the same pattern keeps repeating itself, so he believes himself down on his luck and is just never the cat that gets the cream like everyone else he sees around him. This same guy decides try to change the way that he thinks about things around him and he decides to to communicate more and take the initiative with others around him and people seem to want to be around him more and he finds has more friends, stops and talks to the AA guy on the street who's offering £10 to fill out a form, and he gets £10 where before he would've assumed a scam and walked by, there's a guy on the street offering 'free hugs' and he takes it, and reaches out instead of withdrawing.

 

So, this guy didn't change who he was, he's still the same person he was before, he just chose to think about the world around him differently which altered his perspective and allowed him to see opportunities that he believed weren't there before, whereas the reality is that he just couldn't see them because his perspective had blinkered him.

 

What I'm trying to get at is that I think the way that you choose to see life is up to you, and you can see the good stuff, or the bad stuff, choose to be happy, choose to be sad, and that it's all about how you choose to think.

 

However, in this respect I don't believe it's an inevitability that it changes your personality and your uniqueness - it might change that way that you see life and respond to it, but I don't think it changes who you are.

 

We could go through reams of the things that make up someone's personality and who they are - their particular humour, the manner by which they communicate (I have a friend who makes up names and characters for her cars, dog toys, favourite pen on her desk.. to name a few this is one of her individualities), things that they're into.. of course all of these things will change and evolve because we're not static creatures and we're always experimenting and trying different things on for size, but it all forms a personality that makes us all one of a kind.

 

I actually move through a lot of the colours of the rainbow according to mood for example! I did like your irish guy comment though even if it did imply my little fantasy might not turn out well! But no, it wouldn't affect my preference but then that's a choice that I have, just as other's have theirs, again all to do with the way that you think about things. If someone chose to exile from their lives an entire country of people because of one bad experience with one of it's members, that's their choice, but it's not mine. The difference is perspective.

 

I think we all have far more depth and uniqueness than that that makes us entirely individual, and that's the bit that I'm saying doesn't necessarily change by changing the way that you think. Change it if you want to, if it's not true to you, but I don't think it's an inevitability unless you want it to be.

[hrtlsngl7]

ugh this is so annoying. girls make good friends too. you dont have to force chemistry with every girl you meet, sometimes being just friends is okay. If you have to go out of your way to build a feeling of attraction with someone you probably just aren't a good match.

 

Have enough guy friends to do guy stuff with, and a guy ain't gonna do girly stuff w/ a girl.

[acfan]

I think that women have the capability of being predatory as well. A lot of women make situations as ambiguous as possible so they can have a bunch of male suitors with no real intentions of reciprocating with most of them, or at times none of them at all. She's having intimate conversations and going on pseudo-dates with all these guys. Then if anyone calls them out on it she can say they're "just friends" and the guy looks jealous. Inexperienced guys can spend months bending over backwards to make a girl happy that cares nothing about them. I feel like people on here are quick to be sympathetic when a girl gets "preyed on" but when the tables are turned the guy gets vilified. At the end of the day, both men and women are responsible for their own actions.

 

Absolutely!

[acfan]

Wow! Lots of good points. I do think dating is like a job interview, especially for men. I think that is why women like dating more than men do because they are the employer and men are the job seekers. It is like a job interview you have to pay for and plan. LOL. I also think asking women's opinions on dating is one of the worst thing a guy can do because women will not tell you the truth. Women "want to" want nice guys and will not tell you that you are just not good looking or rich enough to have good luck with women. Guys see how women really behave and look at what kind of guy attractive women date . Women will tell you what their minds think, but follow what their ovaries say. Also, female friends are not going to be honest enough with you to tell you the hard truths and they only know what they like and what their friends like in guys, not every women wants the same thing. I really think us guys need to be more honest about what works and not listen to just one side of the equation. Human love is conditional.

[Raize]

I do think dating is like a job interview, especially for men. I think that is why women like dating more than men do because they are the employer and men are the job seekers.

 

This is true in a sense. It's generally easier for women to get dates than for men to. There is higher 'value' placed on women when it comes to attraction and dating for numerous reasons, chiefly that men are smitten by attraction to women a lot more frequently and easily than the other way around. Also, men are still for the most part the pursuer.

 

If one asks another out, that other says 'yes' and attends the date, then they are just as keen/curious to see what comes of it, so the way I see it the playing ground is even. Of course, you still need to 'sell yourself' on a date ie presentation, putting your best foot forward, whilst remaining genuine (not fake). In any case, anyone who goes into a date with the mentality of 'I'm the potential employee' is selling themself short, regardless of if they were the initial pursuer or not.

[Purusha]

Wow - you seriously believe women are ruled by their ovaries?! That's the equivalent of saying that men are ruled by their d**ks - either statement I find hugely insulting.

 

I understand that you're coming from a male perspective, where it may seem that women have the pick of the bunch and all the cards in their hands, but it's simply not the case. Many women will go out with a man and never go out with him again because he doesn't want to see them again, it works both ways because one has decided the other isn't for them. Men are not complete desperados with no standards whatsoever and have the power of choice as much as women do, and exercise it frequently!

 

I do agree that love is conditional, and would add that those conditions completely vary according to the individual - splitting sides into the male and female contingent does nothing but encourage massively generalised thinking the negates the individual, it devalues everyone.

[ExcitedtoSleep]

Wow - you seriously believe women are ruled by their ovaries?! That's the equivalent of saying that men are ruled by their d**ks.

 

No. Men are ruled by their testicles (half serious).

 

But it is true that, as far as finding a mate, hormones play a large role.

 

Compatible personalities and the innate desire for intimacy keep people together.

[allcity]

I definitely agree with Purusha. And besides, the only guys that experience a world where women hold the 'upper hand' in dating and have the final say in what happens are the guys that set themselves up for that kind of treatment. Plenty of guys go into every date only wanting to show their best side and hoping to meet someone cool, but without any expectations and fully expecting her to have to impress him enough to deserve a second date - not worrying about whether she'll give him a second date.

 

Anyone that ever goes on a date or enters a relationship is risking rejection of some kind, and gender has absolutely nothing to do with it. The only thing that matters is that if you go into a dating scenario worrying about what the other person thinks, that insecurity will radiate from you and will almost cause them not to be attracted to you. The only exception is when you're totally awesome in all other ways and you just have a little insecurity - in that case, the insecurity often actually works to make you even more attractive.

 

The key is to be totally happy in your own skin, totally happy whether you're single or in a relationship, and totally happy with yourself regardless of what opinions other people have about you. That's when you will just see dates as a chance to maybe meet someone cool and maybe meet someone that you might want to see again (and again and again). And once you get there, you will find that you don't really have to do any chasing or worrying about what they think about you, as they'll be too busy doing that about you.

 

No gender has the so-called 'upper hand' in dating or relationships. Only the people that are confident enough in themselves to not define themselves by who wants them or doesn't want them have an 'upper hand', so work more on that and less on comparing whether women have it easier in life than men.