Friendzone
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So the friendzone is a fundamentally shitty sexist concept of bullshit, and I get that.
A quick googling can find you plenty of articles from people explaining why if you don't get it.
Now, I totally get that it sucks to be the girl that just wants a male friend for once, but dudes always end up wanting more from you instead. I feel for you that that's shitty, and I hate ever being "that guy" to anyone...
But the problem is I find that the very way I get attracted to people in the first place causes that to happen. And, so... I hate THAT.
The idea that I'd find some random stranger attractive seems completely alien to me. I mean, sure I can objectively say "that girl looks cute" or whatever, but... so what? That doesn't mean anything at all. I see maybe 10 girls a day that I think are cute-- I don't see the point in chasing any one of them.
So no, for me, I find that basically, over the course of knowing a girl -- a friendship, if you will -- I learn more and more about them and eventually hit sort of a critical mass of all these little "Hey, this girl is amazing!" little tidbits that pushes me over into attracted-to-her-land.
The amount of time this takes varies. Sometimes it's years.
It's not that I'm not up-front about my feelings when we first meet-- I literally didn't have those feelings until 5 minutes ago, even though we've known each other for months.
But then, of course, the girl in question is already happy with our friendship, and so I either have to:
A.) Compromise our friendship with a potentially very icky want-to-be-more conversation that could ruin everything
B.) Wait for a window of opportunity where I see some interest from HER in something more-- which may or may not ever happen...
or C.) Just have to let it go, ignore my feelings, and keep her blissfully unaware of how I feel and hope my attraction fades in time.
This problem is compounded by the fact that this appears to be the ONLY way I get attracted to people.
So I'm forever doomed to being either the shitty ruiner-of-friendships guy, or always alone. :/ And I hate that.
gAnGsTa CaPs sUpPoRtErS
I had the same problem until I realized I'd been seeing women mainly as potential lovers instead of human beings; once I corrected that it all cleared up.
I don't see anything unusual about having to get to know a lady before knowing whether or not you want anything more than a friendship. I think since your feelings of wanting more are new the best thing to do would be B, wait and see if she begins acting more than friends or mentioning things that point towards wanting more but if you get no reciprocation in a reasonable time than you'd have to choose A or C. Me being the hopeless romantic that I am of course always goes for A. I don't think you're doomed.
Okay, but option A is really, really easy if you approach it as you would with any other human. You say "hey, I'm attracted to you," and they either say "I'm attracted to you too," or "I'm not attracted to you," or "I'm not looking for a relationship right now." It doesn't actually affect the friendship at all? Like if you make it known and then in the case of the second and third response don't keep pushing it, the friendship will stay exactly the same from her end. The only way it could possibly be ruined is if it changes your opinion of her, (which is actually also okay as long as you admit to yourself that's what's happening.)
Heh, well, 1.) What do you mean any other human? I did say in the above that I don't think I'm even capable of finding people attractive unless they're already a good friend, so "any other human" doesn't exactly apply. I can't see myself walking up to someone and saying "Hey, I'm attracted to you."
2.) Eh, I've known a couple girls now legitimately upset when a male friend expressed interest in them. Because they're sick of it happening over and over with every guy in their lives. So, in the chance that I were to express interest myself and it's not returned in kind then I'd fear that I've done the same. I don't want to upset anyone they way those girls were upset when it was another guy.
And I just can't shake that fear, nor my belief that the feelings of others should always trump my own.
So, no, I don't find option A all that easy.
Oops, forgot to make a point in part 2 of my response there-- so sure, it was a bit of hyperbole I had used. I'm wouldn't be "ruining the friendship". But still, I don't want to hurt someone they way I've seen people get hurt from the exact same situation.