So as I’ve mentioned before I’ve read a whole lot of online profiles.  I mean a lot.  One thing that always makes me laugh is when the woman says something to the effect of, “I want to marry my best friend” or, “I want to be friends first.”

Gentlemen, don’t believe this.  Here is what that means in reality.  The whole friends first thing is just a safety measure.  It means essentially, “I want to lessen the pressure on this situation.” It can also mean, “I not attracted to you but I’m not good at saying no to people so I’ll say this instead.”  It does not mean they want to be “just friends” for a while and will be attracted to you later.

When a woman says she wants to marry her best friend, it means that she wants to be best friends with the person she is already attracted to and wants to marry.  That is not a bad thing by the way.  But it doesn’t mean that she wants to become friends and then marry someone even though she isn’t attracted to them.

Friendship in a relationship is extremely important.  In the book, The Mystery Method, “Mystery” (you can search this guy out on your own – I don’t condone all that he says but there is some good stuff) offers this equation: Attraction + Comfort = Seduction.  Read that again.  Here’s the idea.  If you create attraction with a woman but aren’t friend material (read comfort) eventually it won’t work.  But if you create friendship without attraction – that is all it will ever be.  You are stuck in the friendzone.

The point is that people, male and female, date people they are attracted to period.  End of story.  We’ll talk about how to get out of/avoid the friendzone later, but that is not the point of this post.  Today I want to talk about pursuing women under the guise of friendship.

This is especially important in the “Christian” dating (or courting or whatever you call it) culture.  Just because we are not going to have sex on the first date does not make us “friends”.  It means we have morals.  But this idea of being her friend so she will eventually like me is weak.  If I’m interested in pursuing a girl I should not approach it as a friendship. Why?  Because that is not what I actually want and that makes it shady.

It drives me crazy when guys do this.  This isn’t legitimate friendship.  It’s false.  It’s a strategy.  There are all sorts of reasons for this strategy.  Maybe, I don’t have the guts to ask this girl out so instead I will become “friends” with her.  Or I know she doesn’t like me but I like her so I’ll hang around her as much as I can and hope that eventually somehow she will “like” me.

Maybe I’ll join her small group, join her cause (something she is passionate about) or worst of all, I “minister” to her, thinking that eventually she will like me. If I do all of this with the hope/intention of turning it into more, then I’m not really being her friend. I’m using friendship as a way to pursue her.

Now I’m not talking about someone who is a friend and later becomes someone of interest. That can sometimes happen.  I’m also not saying don’t have female friends.  What I’m talking about here is using the friendship angle when you don’t mean it.  It’s bad because it’s intellectually dishonest.  Frankly it’s also a waste of time.  Once you are in the friendzone you are done.  Why go there on purpose?  You will never turn that into more as long as that is how she views you.

Honestly there are some guys who are lacking self confidence and think this is literally the only way to get to hang out with women they like.  I feel legitimate pain in my heart for you if that is where you are at.  But you are worth more than that. Stop subjecting yourself to this.

Finally there are guys who are “friends” first because they aren’t sure they want to actually date a particular person or they want to be “friends” with multiple people.  So they “hang out” (read date but without any kind of responsibility) with their “friend”.  Maybe it’s a girl who you think you should be attracted to or who your friends want you to be attracted to. It doesn’t matter. You already know you aren’t attracted to this person – or you’d ask her out.  Don’t drag it out and lead her on.

Look, at one point or another in the last 25 years I’ve done all of the above.  How many times did this work out?  Zero.

So have you ever used the “friend’s first” strategy?  Did it actually protect you?  Have you ever seen it work?