I don't want to get trapped in the friend zone.

[Meerkat54]

I don't want to be the blunt knife here, but in reality (and personal experience) "Friendzoning" is typically a very hard thing to avoid. It might be different for everyone here, but gay guy or not the first step to any relationship is developing a strong friendship that may, or may not, develop into something more.

During this process, however, things can get rather complicated. Per say, you could enter the "friend zone". And that may be for a variety of reasons. They've gotten to know you enough that they'd rather have you as a friend, or they may have found someone else, or whatever. There's really no way to predict let alone prevent you from entering the "friend zone".

The best advice I can give you is to just keep being yourself. Do what you think you should do to get it across to this guy that you like him more than a friend, maybe take a risk or two, it's up to you. But ultimately he'll "come out" in his own time (I don't know if he's gay or not, I didn't quite pick that up in your first post), more so toward you in regards to "being together".

And if things don't go the way you want them to, at least you'll still have a good friend by your side. And, relationship or not, I think a good friendship is much better than any relationship. That's just my opinion, though.


I'm going to tell you a brief story, somewhat related to your problem... I hope I don't sound like an old codger, recalling stories and everything, but whatever you get out of this may help you (or anyone, for that matter) in some way.
That said, I'm gonna spoiler the whole thing in case it's hella irrelevant.

Spoiler:

I once had a massive crush on this friend of mine back in high school. We didn't talk too often but we knew each other enough to be well acquainted. To be honest I didn't really "put myself out there" too much back then, since I was still trying to figure out who I was so I remained introverted a lot of the time. Even when it came to serious discussions that I had put so much thought into, I still couldn't develop the right words, so you could imagine that talking to him in general was a tad difficult in that regard.

At first I started sending him "love letters". I know. Love letters. A real childish thing. But it was the only way I could put my feelings into words - by writing them down - because I didn't know how else to say what it was that I wanted to say. This went on for a few months, until finally I bit the bullet and sent him a text message from a different phone number (so he wouldn't ever know it was me). Long story short, in the last 'letter' I sent him I told him to meet me at a certain place in the school, during class so there wasn't no one around. Again, it would have just been easier for me. I went and waited but he never showed up (can't remember why), so that night I sent him that text. Basically it was me telling him that I understood why he didn't show up and that I accept us remaining friends, and that I hoped he had a good future.

Five minutes later he rang that phone, although I wasn't quite sure if it was him or not so I let it go to voice mail. But it was him, and because I let it ring out he heard the voicemail message for that phone (which was my mother's, whom he sort of knew). As a result he sent me a text message (which I'll paraphrase because my memory forbids me to recall it entirely); "Hey mate, I got your text. Thanks for what you said. I'll talk to you later"
At that point my heart flipped. Not only because he found out it was me (and I dreaded to think if he might tell anyone else and how they might react, as one who is closeted would), but because he thanked me for the message. You can imagine I was hella confused. Was there something there or not? He *thanked* me? What for? Which part of the text did he thank? Did he like me back or not? My head was spinning that night, and for the next few weeks after that.

Ultimately, everything came out. Basically I had told him not to tell anyone about who I was, because y'know, I was still generally confused with myself. After assuming that he hadn't done so, I sent him another text thanking him for not saying anything. But it wasn't him who answered the text. It was another much closer friend of mine, whom I used to play Xbox with a lot. My crush was over at his house with another friend, just chilling out, so I had unintentionally came out to two other people who are quite "involved" with the "friend circles" of high school.

Regardless of whether they spread the word about me or not, I still ultimately got my message(s) across to my crush. Although through a later discussion with my other friend, we figured out that he may have taken the whole thing as a joke. So, again, I had to be a lot more obvious about my feelings toward him.

In the end he got the message, albeit through awkward physical conversations that weren't as expressed as I'd liked them to be, and much texting. However after all the effort I had undertaken, I understood that he didn't swing the same way as me. He was straight and I was gay (although at the time I 'thought' I was bi), and I ultimately realized that nothing was going to change that. I mean a few times after I realized that, I did try again a few times. Either because I was addicted to him or because I was still convinced that he hadn't got the point (not quite sure how, though). Either scenario didn't work out in my favor, however, so yes I was friendzoned. But regardless I told him the way I felt and to me, that was all that mattered in the end. It was up to him to decide how he should react, and in the end I accepted that.

^ However, the moral of that story is quite clear. Whether he was gay, or I was friendzoned, or whatever, I still told my crush the way I felt about him when I felt that the time was right. In your case, perhaps this is something you might feel about considering, but again that's up to you.

I'm not sure if you'll get anything beneficial out of that recap, but your question reminded me of it so I thought you may yet find some use out of it.

Other than that, just be yourself. "Go with the flow" and if you need to, just bite the bullet and tell him how you feel. There's no predicting how he's going to react, so that's something you'll just have to accept. The only way you'll know for sure is if you actually undertake that action.

And if he isn't interested the same way but he's still cool with everything, then just be thankful that you have him as a friend. There's much worse that could happen out of that scenario, but a continued friendship is something that I could live with.