Do you find yourself often being put in the ‘friend zone,’ when often you actually want more? Being put in the friend zone by someone you’re interested in can be incredibly frustrating and can happen for a number of reasons. This blog will take you through some of those reasons and give you some tangible tools to apply, so that you can start to find your voice and cultivate the relationships you truly desire.
I have always struggled with asserting and naming my desires. For me, being attracted to a man has always felt incredibly vulnerable, even embarrassing, and I have often been envious of women who seem to be able to so confidently flirt with and approach men that they’re interested in.
I have often found myself approaching men I was interested in like business partners or artistic collaborators. I would often start new projects or collaborations with men I was attracted to, and yet, every time it would get to a point where I would realise the relationship wasn’t unfolding in the way I actually wanted. We would be spending time together, having fun, but I was always in my “masculine” doing, purpose-driven energy. While there is nothing wrong with being in this energy, it doesn’t tend to lead to romantic interactions. I would be confused at how I had yet again been friend zoned, and frustrated at my cowardness in reaching out from a more vulnerable, feminine space.
In more recent times, I may have managed to get to a place where the context for meeting was more romantic, but still lacked the confidence to bring my femininity into the space. I would often guise my desire for connection in other excuses to catch up, like dropping off a borrowed item or having a chat about an idea, without allowing any of my feminine desire to be seen. Things like gentle touch, an open heart, or a sense of empowered vulnerability were far too scary for me, and still sometimes are.
Even in a long-term relationship context, bringing my feminine online has always been challenging. Initiating intimacy or stepping into my more flirtatious, sensual nature has always been difficult when I spend so much of my time in my hard-working masculine, but I also realise this is a convenient excuse. The reality is, like all of us at different times, I fear rejection, and this allows me to continue supressing my desires.
However frustrating this is, I have started to realise that speaking up, taking a risk and jumping in is way better than avoiding it all together. I am starting to feel more confident in my ability to experience and withstand rejection when it comes. It still hurts, but there is also a level of satisfaction in speaking my desires and I would much rather know what the other person is feeling towards me, than be left wondering and too scared to act.
Having worked through my love avoider tendencies over the past 5 years with Chantelle, I am starting to understand these patterns a little better and working to have a little more courage in facing the spaces of vulnerability I’d sometimes rather avoid.
In previous blogs we have written about the Love Avoider / Love Addict dynamic that plays out in most relationships.
For a more detailed explanation you can revisit those blogs here: “Releasing the Need to Grasp or Avoid in Relationships,” Part One and Part Two. This will be a useful additional read to this week’s blog.
CULTIVATING THE FEMININE MYSTERY
When it comes to being put in the friend zone, the Love Addict / Love Avoider polarity tends to play out for two different reasons, but both are connected to cultivating the feminine mystery.
Love Avoider: Doesn’t bring the true depth of their feminine mystery and desires to their communications. Often hides their true desires in other agendas, is indirect, and finds it difficult to share their true feelings. Whilst the Love Avoider gives their lover plenty of space, the shadow side is that they don’t allow the full mystery of their deep longing to unfold. Love Avoiders have a fear of intimacy that leads them to subconsciously create separation and distance.
Love Addict: Comes across as needy, doesn’t have her own life, reveals every part of herself at all times, over communicates and doesn’t allow the feminine mystery to unfold. While the Love Addict brings touch, sensuality and their open, vulnerable heart, the shadow side is that they can be too needy and give too much of themselves. Love Addicts have a fear of rejection and abandonment that leads them to become clingy or unhealthily attached.
For both of these scenarios, the solution is to allow the true feminine mystery to be present. Often the feminine in a man is much less mature than the feminine in a woman. When they come into our presence, a man is enticed and wants to feel that deep place of the feminine.
In order to cultivate this, there are a number of things you can do. It is important to remember not to do this to “get a man,” but rather that cultivating a healthy relationship to both your feminine and masculine is good for you and will lead to a more fulfilling relationship to yourself. Our external relationships are always a reflection of the relationship we have with ourselves, and our relationship with self requires just as much attention and focus as those in our external world.
SHIFTING OUT OF THE FRIEND ZONE
Love Avoider: Firstly, break out of the nice/good girl and validate your own feelings and desires. Whatever you feel and desire is fair enough and valid and deserves to have a voice. If you are people pleaser, and only act from a place of wanting everyone around you to be okay, then you won’t even know what you want, let alone, how to ask for it.
Love Avoiders are often polarised in their masculine energy which doesn’t bring the alluring feminine energy into the space. See if you can work on cultivating your feminine energy, first with yourself, by validating your emotions, increasing sensual self-touch and taking time to be in this space. Then, you can start to also bring this energy into your interactions with the men you desire, allowing yourself to be seen in your open heartedness, playing with gentle touch and clearly speaking your desires for what they are. This doesn’t need to be a performance of what you think a “feminine” woman should be, but rather, through self-inquiry and self-practice, coming to a genuine place of self-acceptance, where you see all of you as being valid, worthy of being seen, and having a voice.
Speaking your desires also requires a certain level of confidence and self-worth. We all know those people that exude an authentic self-confidence and it’s often really sexy. Knowing that you have your own back, and that you can face rejection and be okay, if and when it comes, means you can state your desires plainly, without attachment to the outcome. This can be much less daunting for the recipient, as they can sense your energy is clear and often makes it a much more straightforward process in a potential relationship unfolding.
Love Addict: Give them space. Love Addicts can find it incredibly difficult to step back and come back to themselves. Where Love Avoiders tend to have a strong masculine energy Love Addicts can be very in their feminine but can find it difficult to know when to bring this back. Their emotions can be right at the surface and they can be ready to give everything up for love. Therefore, Love Addicts can focus on bringing in stronger masculine energy within themselves. Like Love Avoiders, this starts with self practice, and being able to sit in the depth of the feminine emotion and desire, but not needing to act on it externally.
When you’re in your Love Addict, don’t share every single thing with the man you are attracted to. Have your own life, and allow any resistance to this show where you might be better able to create a life that is truly fulfilling, with or without a partner. When a man can see and feel that you have a rich life without them, they will be more likely drawn to being a part of it. When you are living your own life, this will often ignite the hunter/gatherer instinct in a man, who will feel drawn towards you, rather than feeling like you are relying on them for all your happiness and fulfilment.
This also means you have to stop waiting. Rather than chasing and moving towards them all the time, how would it feel to start receiving? To fill your own cup? To not be waiting by the phone all day, pausing the rest of your life, and changing plans so that any time he calls you are available and ready.
Quite simply, we are often friend zoned because we are too polarised in one of the two energies of Love Addict or Love Avoider. Developing a greater inner balance will not only help with avoiding being friend zoned but will also help you to develop more fulfilling, authentic relationships in general. The feminine mystery is powerful, and when you embody her fully, she is a force to be reckoned with.
If you are interested in learning more about relationships and how to start asking for what you desire, then pop your email in to watch this FREE Video Series by Chantelle Raven on “Transforming your relationship: From toxic & unhealthy dynamics, to loving & passionate Union.”
With Love
Xx Raven & Erin
