Is It Possible to Avoid the Friend Zone?

Join us for a pointed discussion on a topic that sparks debate and intrigue: navigating the complexities of the 'friend zone'. In this video, we'll delve into this highly debated and often challenging subject, exploring strategies and insights aimed at understanding and potentially avoiding this relational dynamic.

The 'friend zone' is a concept that often raises questions and emotional complexities in relationships. Our conversation aims to shed light on this multifaceted aspect of relationships, providing insights into understanding the dynamics at play and discussing ways to navigate these situations with empathy and respect.

Dr. K’s Guide to Mental Health explores Anxiety, Depression, ADHD, and Meditation

▼ Timestamps ▼
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00:27 - Frustrations about the Friendzone
2:57 - The Friendzone feels like a cycle
5:30 - The Bridge Experiment
7:53 - Investing in one person at a time
9:23 - What determines how your feelings will grow?
11:22 - Attachment style
14:12 - Painting a clear picture
15:55 - What do you do after catching feelings?
19:25 - How to handle rejection
22:57 - The solution to the Friendzone

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All guests of Healthy Gamer are informed of the public, non-medical nature of the content and have expressly agreed to share their story.

#healthygamergg #relationships #friendzone

[Michaelmercado]

Man, I gotta say: Discovering your channel feels like I'm entering a new chapter in my life.

[oxanax]

another thing that sucks and wasn't mentioned it the video is that when you have feelings for somebody, you try to look for hints in every word they say and tend to misinterpret a lot of their words. I was in love with my best friend for many months and every time he would say that I look very pretty in a picture I would be like he is so in love with me. now, thinking about it after he rejected me, ummmm, no, he was just making a compliment and being nice while my brain was desperately clinging onto every gesture that could theoretically be considered romantic.

[sabilza]

I'm an introvert, watched this video multiple times to gather up my courage before I ask her. Yesterday I told her about my feeling, I was so prepared to hear the rejection but turns out she gave me a green light. My response to her is "Okay" and then dead silent for 5 minutes because I did not expect that kind of reaction after being her friend for over 9 years. Now our conversation become more romantic and preparing to confess to her in a couple of days. Thanks for your help, Dr K!

[KyleHohn]

“Avoiding the friendzone” is based on a false premise. It assumes you have agency to cause the other person to friendzone you or not. Life isn’t a video game where the correct actions guarantee you a specific result. Often no matter what you do, it has no effect on the other persons interest. You can avoid the friendzone more generally by not fixating on people that don’t feel the same about you.

[xCCflierx]

That ending
Very helpful
You aren't being rejected. You aren't asking them out. You have a problem that you are talking out with your friend.
I'm afraid of conflict and abandonment but my fear of conflict is much easier to control as I gain the slightest confidence. I can talk to a friend. It's still hard but I just talked to a friend about a problem and how I felt about it. I needed this.

[bluearcticfox]

This is THE video I needed to see today. Recently I started developing feelings for a guy friend and I have not known what to do about it. I became tired of years of bottling up my feelings, so I wanted to "confess" today and then run away scared of the answer, as I have always done previously. But I clicked at the video at just the right time. So, right now we're having the conversation (it's still going - we met offline, but live in different cities at the moment). And it's turning out to be one of the healthiest conversations in my life. I know: even if I'll be sad at the end, at least I've saved MONTHS of wondering and hoping, and I will get better much faster, because I'm doing it now

[Zero-]

Just make your intentions clear bros, if you don't get a positive response you're not going to get further than the friend zone

[conde_bathory]

Key thing I have learnt today-
If you want to avoid this whole FZ cycle you MUST:
i. Be emotionally aware of yourself
ii. You should recognize those romantic feelings
iii. Have an EARLY convo with him/her/them, right then and there
*You are actually TRYING TO SOLVE A PROBLEM WITH YOUR FRIEND*

[_WeDontKnow_]

this is so helpful. i've had such horrible problems with intense jealousy for a long time, i've been hoping you'd do a dedicated video on jealousy but i feel like this addressed some of the fundamental causes of it pretty well.

[iExploder]

It's weird though: why have we developed a convention, as a society, where men and women are basically required to be complete strangers in order to fall in love? Why CAN'T we start out as friends first? I would imagine that 3-6 months isn't, for a lot of people, actually enough time to get to know someone enough to know whether you want to engage in a romantic relationship.

[A-do]

if someone is in the formative years watching these videos, taking it in, re-watching them, applying it, this is a literal game changer. this is amazing content. thank you so much, doc.

[holybeetle]

This is most excellent advice. I'm proud to say I've broken the cycle recently. Told two women I had feelings much earlier than I typically would. It didn't result in romantic relationships, but the emotional self awareness to acknowledge it and not fear the outcome is freeing.

[AxelKnowsAll]

I “escaped” the “friend zone” after 8 or 9 years of pursuit. Lusting over someone for that long doesn’t put you in a place to have a healthy relationship and ultimately the flame burned out instantly. I wish I would have seen something like this when I was much younger but I can’t trade the lessons I’ve learned. Good luck friends!

[alexanderelderhorst]

The worst part about a huge confession at the end of the friendzone is that the girl might actually have feelings for you too, and if you make a huge confession and catch them off guard then they might just panic and say no, and then you end the friendship and both of you feel regret. So what you said about having a casual talk about it is the best way to communicate it.

[Sarah-recg]

This is such an important conversation. Omg. Omg omg omg. The part about saying “hey I need to step out of this and give myself time” is a type of boundary you are setting which shall be respected. You deserve to have your own boundaries respected (and vice versa)

[NeddyTheNoodle]

Hopefully some people can genuinely find this helpful because what he is saying is completely true. I ended up figuring out how to do this on my own. I told her that I had feelings for her and wanted to know how she felt. When she rejected me I just explained that yeah, I needed time to process stuff and we needed some strong boundaries. We stopped being friends, and having months away from her was a massive benefit to my mental health. Even now I feel confident that we could be friends because I feel recovered from the whole thing. So big takeaway, disengage. Do not stay in the "friendzone, " it will destroy your mental health. Be in healthy relationships, not ones like that.

[nbnbnb]

Thank you Dr. K. The fact that you're sharing info like this, AND FOR FREE, is amazing.

[thestmetalhead]

It's sad to see how many young adults (especially men) suffer from this huge problem in our society that no one is willing to talk about or solve.
Glad to have someone like Dr K is addressing this issue.

[WhitePillDave]

The friend zone is usually the man avoiding the risk of rejection by not making a move or showing his real intention. This is self defeating and leads to soft rejection + fake friendship. It absolutely can be avoided by making your intentions clear, making yourself a more attractive partner and being willing to accept rejection and quickly move on.

[Spbm]

Finally, the first time someone says something that actually checks out for me. I used to think I was alien and worked differently, because everyone would condemn my behaviour and recommend actions that never felt right. Normally, I only develop romantic feelings for friends, but I usually wait too much "to make sure", because I tend to be afraid of being premature...and then the entire cycle in the video happens and it finally makes sense. I usually heard things like "You should make your intentions clear from the get go" or "You should not make it seem you want to be friends", and those never worked for me, because they were wrong and dishonest, because I did want to be friends and I could not let intentions clear from the get go because they didn't exist in the beggining, the intention was to be a friend. I used to be terrible at emotional awareness and I would only notice I had romantic feelings when I was deep into it and I would shock myself like something unexpected happened, when the truth was that I never understood myself. I'm past those days, thankfully, but now I finally learned where lies the problem: it's not premature to let things clear on the first sign and it is harmful to grow the feelings while hiding them to be on "the safe side" by making sure "your feelings are true". I had long since given up on love because I would always hear stupid advices regarding "timing" and now I actually see a way to do something. It's been awfully long, however, I have to deal with my apathy first now, but at least I know a direction to take when I feel things again.