Why the friend zone is a good place to start

Friendships don’t have expected outcomes the way that romantic relationships do. I hang out with my friends because I love them and enjoy them, but I don’t suppose they’re going to design their lives around me. I don’t imagine that we’re going to grow old and die together. But with romantic relationships, if I’m not careful, I fall into this kind of outcome-oriented perspective. I imagine what kind of life I’ll have, and I think about whether this partner can fit into it. I try to check and see if I’ll be disappointed with the way things turned out when I’m 80. In the near term, I make all my decisions by thinking about what will get me the likeliest path to the best outcome.

And this is a problem. Because as the relationship starts to diverge from the path of my imagined dream, as it eventually must, I stay on the dream pth while my mind goes off on another path. I start to notice incongruncies between my plan and reality. I start to build up tiny resentments. Eventually, this causes the downfall of the relation.

But if you start with friendship, you can get all the freedom-endowing structures of that relationship style, without the large potential downsides of watching life fail to conform to your goals.

The advice here: focus on being happy and having deep connections. Think less about outcomes. You’ll get a good benefit.

If your goal is to be happy and have deep connections, you’ll find yourself with lots of friends. Sometimes, one of those friendships might grow enough to turn romantic.

If you start as friends and can succeed at that, your chances of success as a couple are much higher.

*But only a legitimate friend zone. Not like the way America is friends with Saudi Arabia.