Escape Friend Zone Part 2: Orbiters

escape friend zone

As promised in my article the other day, I am going to talk more about the dreaded “friend zone”, how to escape friend zone territory, and most importantly how to eliminate needy “orbiter” behavior. In addition, I wanted to mention how I’ve had a lot of feedback about the “Dark Virtues” mentioned on my previous post. These specific characteristics require expansion, and in upcoming articles I am going to further explore how these traits can be adopted by a man through natural integration into his personality.
But for now, let’s talk more about being friends with women, and how exactly you should treat your female friends. Personally, I have more female friends than male friends. This is mostly because of constantly going out and doing cold approaches for years. Not every woman wants to sleep with you, but a lot will want to be your friend. And guess what? I’m perfectly fine with this.

Friend zone frustration is actually the result of guys who needlessly want female approval, while coming from a position of scarcity. This is why guys on every forum on the web complain of their friend, Sally, who they are crushing on, but why goddammit do the Sallies not like them back? Well, the reason is because if you’re hanging around a woman that you want to bang, there’s a special word for you:

An Orbiter

Do you ever notice that really hot women have a lot of both gay male friends, and orbiters? The gay male friends serve as risk-free male companionship, while the orbiter has the function of boosting her self-esteem and making her feel wanted. In addition, she can use an orbiter as leverage against other guys who are also trying to get in her pants. That’s right—she has an instant fake-boyfriend whenever she needs one.

There are few things as painful to me as watching orbiters hang around a woman. It’s not the woman’s fault she has an orbiter, some of it is the result of her trying to be kind, by letting a guy that is not sexually interesting into her social circle versus just telling him to go away. Then, naturally, she will start to gain emotional benefit from that relationship, just without the sexual component.

Understand that there is no reason to ever be an orbiter, and there is no reason a “friend zone” should even have to exist. I suspect most guys who complain about friend-zones are, in some ways, orbiters. If you release attachment and your fantasies of boning her and / or marrying her and frolicking through a big sunny field with her, then her existence as your friend is no longer a conquest. So who cares? There is no friend zone, there is no struggle on your part. You can just let it go.

In addition, there is no reason you should be falling in love with some girl you’re not even dating. Just because Hollywood says this is acceptable behavior, does not mean it has application in real life. You can flirt with girls and be interested in the possibility of something, but the minute you place undo attachment to the idea of getting with them, then you’ve become an orbiter and have lost all value.

The Non-Orbiter Male Friend

There is a fourth type of guy (the prior three being lovers, orbiters, and gay friends), and this is the male friend. Admittedly, not every woman keeps true male friends—some women are flabbergasted by the concept. By contrast other women, especially tomboys, keep exclusively male friends.

Nonetheless, the qualities of a true male friend has nothing to do with the traits of the orbiter who wants approval and a sexual victory. It is the job of the male friend to never fall into the orbiter category, and this is done by NOT expressing sexual interest, whether in the form of trying to always get together with her, or showing unappreciated “kindness” in an attempt to “win her heart”. A true male friend would NEVER say “Oh, shucks, I’m in the friend zone.” By doing this, he would immediately downgrade himself into an orbiter status, and it would be shameful on both sides.

Now, there MAY be flirtation and some type of chemistry behind-the-scenes. This is natural. But for whatever reason, you guys are not hooking up. Is this a reason to panic? No, just relax about it.

The problem with men is that we feel sex is some type of entitlement. Somehow it becomes a problem to know an attractive woman, and not be having sex with her. Real men have to be sexual animals, right? Well, no, I tend to disagree. If you can’t keep a normal female friend without obsessing about getting with her, then there’s something wrong with your social acumen.

To establish yourself as a male friend, do NOT: express sexual interest, fantasize about being with her, masturbate while you think of her, or strategize about winning her heart. You should, however, treat her as you would any friend: if you guys have a good rapport, then stay in touch, hang out and include her in your social circle. Don’t allow her to have all of the power, either. Do you hand your power over to your guy friends on a silver platter? Hell no.

Male Friends Versus Lovers

Now here’s an interesting concept: if you’re just her friend, yet you exhibit many of the virtues of lovers, namely mysteriousness, playfulness, apathy, edginess, and a host of other sexual characteristics, I have news for you: she’s going to start crushing on you. By not showing your own interest, and not behaving as an orbiter, you will remain in her mind as a potential love interest. By behaving this way, she’ll actually respect you a lot more as well.

In other words, a male friend who’s attractive is much closer to being her lover than orbiter. In fact, an orbiter has likely no chance of crossing that threshold. To make matters worse, it’s not even easy for an orbiter to become a regular male friend, because the dynamic has already been established of unrequited sexual interest.

The best thing an orbiter can do is actually cut the woman from his life immediately, and to stop himself from ever becoming an orbiter again in the future, mostly through self-restraint: no texting, calling, and being unnecessarily nice to female friends in the hopes of scoring with them. Instead, be aloof, fun, social, and a good friend.

Usually what happens, after a while, is you’ll get the “friend zone” talk from her, which goes something like “I think I’m in YOUR friend zone”.

In Summary

So, It turns out to escape friend zone, you have to never actually be in friend zone to begin with. By not actively trying to pursue her, you’ll earn more respect by the woman, and by exhibiting qualities of a lover in your normal interaction, she’s going to start fantasizing about you, and perhaps even become YOUR orbiter.

The reason 95% of guys get this wrong and claim you cannot go from a friend into something more, is because they are, in fact, orbiters. As soon as you establish yourself as an orbiter, then you’re in a black hole. On the other hand, having a lot of actual female friends around can do absolutely nothing bad for you. Even if you don’t acquire these women later on as lovers, it shouldn’t be your prerogative to do so. You can value any female friendship as much as a male friendship, and female friends can be enduring throughout good times and hard.