You DO want the Friend Zone

How did friendship come to be so bad?  That’s totally upside down.

We’ve all heard about the dreaded Friend Zone — that place you go when you’ve failed at dating.  Because being there results from failure, the Friend Zone carries quite the negative connotation.

But that’s not the only reason.  So many singles want so much not to be single that anything which doesn’t fulfill that desire is bad.  The Friend Zone is where you go when someone you want refuses to help you fulfill that desire.  In addition, getting friend-zoned means all connection gets severed, so you’re not even really friends anymore.

How did friendship come to be so bad?  That’s totally upside down.  Friendship is good, and when you understand the fundamentals of the dating journey, you can easily see you do want the Friend Zone.

Understand your journey

It’s hard to get anywhere in any journey without having a good map and then getting your bearings on that map.  That’s what knowing the fundamentals of the dating journey does.  They provide that good map and help us get our bearings.

One of those fundamentals is understanding the different stages.  And the first stage of the dating journey is the Friendship stage.  You’re in this stage when you first meet someone, and you’ll be in this stage until you start dating.  In this stage, there’s no commitment of either party to each other; anyone can come and go as they please.  That lack of commitment is necessary to foster each person opening up enough to let someone else know them better, which you need to foster true friendship.

Friendship is the foundation of all successful long-term relationships.  That’s why the Friendship stage is the first stage of the dating journey.  Without friendship, a married couple won’t have the stamina to get through the difficult times and challenges that sooner or later come to every marriage.  If you want to build something that lasts, begin with a solid foundation.

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Be where you are

The Friendship stage is where building that solid foundation starts.  You don’t necessarily need to have that foundation completed before proceeding to the next stage.  In fact, you’ll be building that foundation of friendship all along your dating journey.  But you should have the core established before going further.

Many singles encounter difficulty in their dating journey when they try to rush it.  Seeing singleness as something to escape, they want it over as quickly as possible.  That propensity to rush leads them to think they’re in one stage when they’re really in another.

Singles progress more effectively through their dating journey when they consciously choose to be in the stage where they are.  You may want to be dating someone, but if you’re in the Friendship stage, then be there.  That doesn’t mean you don’t look for opportunities to date.  It means you focus on friendship building skills you’ll need when you’re with whoever you do eventually marry.

So when you’re in the Friendship stage, be in the place where you are.  Focus on building friendships and enjoying people for who they are and what they have to offer without any expectation of getting something in return.  There’s no commitment in this stage of the dating journey, so you don’t have to accept anything you don’t like.

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Enjoy the journey more

When you focus on being where you are, what was once complex and confusing becomes simple and clear.  Truly being in the place where you are allows you to let go of worries and concerns about the future.  You can’t cross a bridge until you get to it, so focus on crossing when you get there.

Being in the place where you are also allows you to experience more joy in your journey.  Because you’ve pushed aside concerns about future stages for when you’re actually in those stages, you’ve cleared the space for more joy to come into your life.  You can learn to enjoy people for who they really are without concerns about what they might offer you in return.  The friend zone then changes from the equivalent of some God-forsaken wasteland to a wonderful paradise of plenty where life just becomes enjoyable.  And isn’t that what we all really want in the end?

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