When She Wants To Remain "Just Friends"

Want To Be More Than 'Just Friends'? Here's What You Need To Do

The Dating Nerd is a shadowy figure whose whereabouts and identifying details remain unknown. What we do know is that he is really, really good at dating. He's been on more dates than you can shake a lengthy bar tab at, and he's here to help the average guy step his dating game up a notch -- or several.

The Question

Hi Dating Nerd,

I'm in love with one of my close friends. It was love at first sight, but I've never had the courage to tell her the way I feel. We've just been platonic this whole time. Recently, I finally told her that I wanted to take our relationship to the next level. She was nice about it but basically rejected me. She told me she wanted to just stay friends. What can I do? How can I change her mind?

- Lovelorn Larry

The Answer

Hi Larry,

This is such a simple problem. The solution is that you do nothing. You do not date this girl, because she doesn't want to date you. As much as possible, you move on, after crying a lot of tears, or pumping a lot of iron, or watching a lot of porn -- whatever your chosen grieving mechanism is. Eventually, you pick yourself up and find the courage to date people who are actually attracted to you.

I know that might sound harsh. And I know it's not what you're looking for. Writing this letter, you were probably hoping for a magic word or two you could utter, or some secret formula to make any woman attracted to you. There are people on the Internet who promise such things. I'm not a liar, so I won't. There's no wiggle room here. And the sooner you really hear this and absorb it, the better. It's actively psychologically detrimental to humiliate yourself by trying to seduce people who don't want to sleep with you. The longer you hang around this girl and beg her for a relationship, the less you'll feel like a self-controlled, formidable individual, and the more you'll feel like a lonely shadow of a person, living for the approval of others.

By the way, I'm proceeding on the assumption that you're not happy with being friends with her -- that, in fact, you were never interested in friendship alone. As much as you enjoy her company, your goal from the beginning was to take some sort of complicated roundabout path to get into her pants. You hoped to charm her with what a good guy you are. You assumed that once she knew you close-up, she would find herself attracted to you, and marry you, and force you to buy a smart car, or whatever other nonsense marriage with her would entail.

And I'm sympathetic. Our culture does a really bad job of educating men in that odd combination of swagger, humility, kindness, and not-giving-a-damn that it takes to be socially charming with women you're sexually interested in. There are few explicit rules around dating in the modern era, and this means that to anyone who hasn't done a lot of of it, it can seem like there's no way to express overt interest in somebody without coming off as a creep. Therefore, a lot of nice guys only have niceness to fall back on, so that's what they do -- they attempt to attract women by being pleasant. Also, it's the only way they know to get any of that sweet, sweet female attention in their lives.

But this is obviously a doomed effort. And I can make that very clear if you pay the slightest attention to the following example. Think about the nicest woman you know -- that you're not attracted to. Let's just call her Brenda. (Apologies to my female readers named Brenda.) Imagine that she starts being your best friend, like, ever. She makes you trays and trays of your favorite muffins, listens to all of your woes about this girl you're in love with, and even pretends to be interested when you recap your favorite episode of the Joe Rogan podcast. Would you then want to sleep with her?

Of course not. Unfortunately, sexual attraction and collegial friendliness are not the same. (We might live in a better world if they were, but that's just speculation.) Occasionally, these two qualities are even directly opposed -- we're drawn to people who are mysterious, or off-limits, or surprising, whereas we're friends with people we can just casually hang with, who are familiar and safe and comforting. (The difficulty of building a relationship is in finding a compromise between the crackling spark of passion and the even warmth of friendship.)

Moreover, this is frustrating for your female friend, too. After all, you would feel a little weird if you knew that Brenda, our imaginary example person, was just fulfilling your friendship needs so she could eventually maybe wheedle you into sleeping with her. Likewise, you and your female friend have built a meaningful friendship together, on the premise that you actually wanted friendship, and now she finds out she's been lied to, or at least was given an incomplete version of your feelings.

Again, I don't tell you this to hurt you. I'm telling this for your own good, so you can develop as a person. First, you've got to learn to not chase after people who obviously aren't into you. Secondly, you've got to learn to not base your self-worth on whether one person wants to screw you. And these things are hard to learn. They can only be constructed from a lot of lonely nights, a lot of rejection, and maybe a sad email to an advice columnist or two. I've definitely been there.

Now, let me close this with an encouraging note. I'd like to say that it's actually possible that you'll end up dating this girl. No, really. It's far from guaranteed. It probably won't happen. But there's an outside chance. Let me tell you how this scenario works out.

You take my advice and you man up. Starting tomorrow, you stop pretending that you want to be friends with this girl. If she texts you to complain about her problems with her latest boyfriend, you tell her that you're really sorry, but you're not prepared to offer her the emotional support she needs. And then, with all the time you save by not constantly hanging out with her and attending to her problems, you do whatever else you're passionate about. You go places, you make money, you date other people.

And then, maybe -- maybe -- a few years down the line, you run into her at a party. You've changed. You've grown up a little. She realizes how much she misses you. Maybe she even recently saw a picture of you with some girl on Facebook, and she feels a surprising pang of jealousy. Pow, magic.

This is a really unlikely scenario. But, again, it is mathematically possible.

Think you could use some dating help, too? Email the Dating Nerd at [email protected].