Real_Woman3_xlargeNice Guy.

Friend Zone.

“Let’s Just Be Friends.”

These words still ring deep from my past.

I thought I knew what I was doing. I like women. I think they’re beautiful. I always have. I spent years, well through high-school, college, and into my twenties believing that if I could become just the kind of guy girls said they wanted, I’d have a girlfriend and finally lose my virginity.

You may imagine my confusion when that didn’t happen. Perhaps you have a knowing chuckle at my naïveté. Maybe this feels all too familiar.

Being this guy sucks

My confusion swung me from thinking there was something seriously wrong and defective with me to believing that women were senselessly cruel and confusing.

friendzone-level-99Then came a wake-up call. After faithfully putting several years in the friend zone, I was on the verge of converting this woman who I thought was The One.

Fearfully, I scrutinized every little thing she did to the last drop.  My worst interpretations seemed the most plausible. When I had enough, I would snap. Literally, I was like some kind of heartless monster lashing out at her, only later apologetically returning to make amends.

I’m chilled recalling how I screamed venomously into the phone at her in the middle of the night.

I was not the nice guy I thought I was

After so many missed opportunities with her, I just walked away. Totally severed all connection. My heart began to freeze into a ball of resentment towards all women. Years would pass before I felt any genuine desire for a real woman—save my total sexual objectification of them.

Since then a lot changed. I lost my virginity. I had my first girlfriend. I genuinely like women and think they’re beautiful. I no longer think in terms of the friend-zone. Now, I have more rewarding relationships—friendships as well as sexually and emotionally intimate connections. It’s not always everything I think I want. There are ups and downs along the way. I don’t yet have the life partner I hope to have one day. But there’s one important thing I learned…

I didn’t respect myself or women

At some almost entirely subconscious level, I was keeping score. I believed I could earn, exchange, cajole, win, persuade, control… you name it. And I’m pretty sure women I pursued could sense this, even if they weren’t able to tell me straight.

I did not truly respect women—I judged and resented them. I didn’t truly respect myself—I thought I needed to earn something. All they knew to do was say “I don’t like you in that way, let’s just be friends.”  Then I blamed them for putting me in the “friend zone.”

In this place I was nobody’s friend. Not the women, and definitely not myself. This might be some kind of zone, but it is definitely not a “friend zone.”

It was painful for me to see this about myself—but it was exactly what I needed to wake up, stop blaming women, start taking responsibility for myself, and get my ass to AMP.

Things haven’t been the same since.

This video inspired me to write this.  Watch it!