In a future article, I will talk about some myths of the “friend zone”, and why it’s not necessarily THAT bad to be a woman’s “just a friend”, at least not as bad as a lot of dating coaches claim it is. But for now, I want to talk about the core differences between friends and lovers, and how you can permanently get out of friend zone territory, and hopefully never land there in the first place.

Objectively speaking, there are several elements of female psychology that change you from a friend and into a lover, and the challenge we face is the adaptation of our personalities to be more of a lover versus a friend. Many of us are naturally attuned to being friends–and there’s nothing wrong with this. To be a good friend to someone, and a good person in life, requires certain core values that should never go away:

Virtues of Friends

– Loyalty

– Trustworthiness

– Sincerity

– Emotional Attentiveness

– Humility

– Appreciation and Love

These are all good things, right? In fact as we digest material that discusses the maintenance of relationships, it seems like a no-brainer that we need to be all of these things to help our personal lives, our relationships, and even our business partnerships.

And it’s not entirely difficult to exhibit these positive personality traits. The first step is simply caring about another person’s feelings, and many of the other steps come naturally. Good friends don’t screw each other over, they don’t use people for personal benefit, and they give value to their friend’s lives in the form of company and sincerity.

But the problem—and the paradox—is that while this behavior makes you a better person and improves your relationships, it doesn’t necessarily do anything to specifically help a man’s sexual attractiveness. They’re not related to each other. Learning these virtues to become more sexually attractive is like scuba diving to become better at golf.

In fact, to go into romantic territory, an entirely different set of “virtues” are used. I’ve spent my adult life trying to figure out what these alternate virtues are. The men who have them never realize they have them, but the men who don’t spend their entire lives frustrated and completely hopeless with women.

The “Alternate Virtues” of the Male Lover

Mysteriousness

Sexual confidence

Playfulness

Apathy

An edge

Power

How could something like “apathy” or having an “edge” be beneficial to any type of relationship? The answer is that it doesn’t really make sense. On the same note, how come men are attracted to women with certain hip and facial ratios? When you think about it, this doesn’t make much sense either.

However, evolution has somehow hard-wired these triggers into us. What it ultimately creates is a very unique, at times marvelous thing known as sexual attraction.

So, men who exhibit all of the primary friendship virtues are great at meeting people, making friends, and even meeting women–yet without any of the alternative sexual virtues, they never turn any of the women on, things NEVER turn sexual and their dating lives remain abysmal.

Conversely, the reason “good girls” end up with loser boyfriends is they find guys with all of the alternate sexual virtues and NONE of the primary virtues. When a guy has only personality qualities like edginess to rely on, without dependability or compassion, he becomes the walking, talking equivalent of the “Scumbag Steve” meme. Socially unintelligent girls will, however, still go for this type of guy because he elicits arousal.

Smart women ultimately choose men with the primary virtues, and they don’t make long-term decisions based on sexual feelings. This is why even guys who are completely plain without any sexual characteristics eventually settle down and find wives, typically with women from their social circles who had just dated 14 Scumbag Steves and a gangster, and then decided that Good Guy Greg had been there for her all along.

However, those primary virtues do NOT determine the initial meeting, and putting your future in the hands of waiting for a girl to come around to her senses after going through several rock bands and a thug is NOT my idea of sound dating advice. Instead, it’s better to start turning women on immediately.

So, In Summary…

The unfortunate truth is that even if you’re a popular, likable guy with access to women—and you’re stranded on an island with 20 beautiful, young single amazon babes, you will still not hook up if you possess none of the alternate virtues. The amazons will probably just kill you and eat you, in fact.

On the same note a man without the friendship virtues will have a terrible time at relationships. He will turn into that swarthy-but-sexy con-artist Sawyer from Lost who all the chicks liked at first, but was ultimately a huge self-loathing dick.

How to Solve This

The answer is cultivate the “sexual virtues” but don’t neglect the “friendship virtues”, either. Work on your playfulness, creating an edge to your demeanor, caring less what people think, becoming more mysterious and less privy to give away information, more teasing, and more sexually forthright, taking gambits, going for that kiss, etc.

While at the same time, realize that you’re just performing a dance, something that should be fun for both parties. You’re not actually replacing your honest, good-guy behavior for a different set of values. You’re just reinforcing them with some special accessories to your normal personality, creating sexually charged chemistry to experience the most you can, and most importantly creating a tool to consistently get out of friend zone territory.

At the end of the day, it’s the first list of virtues, the honesty and compassionate behavior, that determines your long-term relations, and the quality of even your romantic partners. But, it’s the “dark virtues”, the alternate set of sexy behaviors that jump-starts new relationships, creates sexual adventures, and inserts spice into long-term relationships.

Don’t supplant one for the other, just utilize both. In fact, if you neglect the dark virtues you’ll become sexually frustrated and resentful, which may even jeopardize your friendship virtues. In a way, these behaviors are symbiotic.