of the friend zone. You know, the experience

of liking someone and then finding out that they would rather just be friends

with you. Why does it happen? If there's

hope of escaping the friend zone, how can it be done?

And, more importantly, should you?

The term "friend zone" was popularized by the TV show

Friends on November 3, 1994.

In Episode 7 of the first season,

Joey tells Ross that Rachel likes him,

but will never like like him.

Ross is in the friend zone. Now, of course,

everything turned out fine for Ross, but we're getting ahead of ourselves.

Back when I calculated how much money love is worth

I discussed the feeling of having a crush on someone.

Those emotions, the nervousness, the excitement have a name.

What you feel when you have a crush on somebody is known

as limerence. It's exciting to feel butterflies in your stomach whenever

you're around somebody

and those butterflies may be caused by the release

of adrenaline, which pulls blood away from things like your stomach

and toward the muscles, where it may be better used. Of course,

this can cause the stomach to shut down a bit, become upset.

It may also explain why people have a reduced appetite

when they feel love sick. Now, whether you are

male, female, gay, straight,

everybody can be friend-zoned. And, biologically speaking,

the route of the friend zone may be

Bateman's Principle. Named after

Angus Bateman, the principle states that whenever a species,

like us humans, contains two different sexes,

each with dissimilar sex cells, for instance,

sperm and egg, inevitably one sex will have to commit more resources to the

production

of offspring. In mammals this is especially true.

A female can have only a limited number of offspring,

whereas a male can have a virtually

unlimited number. This causes a biological tendency for

one sex to be competitive and for the other

to be choosy. The newest episode of

Earth Touch's "Wild Sex" goes into a lot more detail about this,

so be sure to check it out. But today,

regardless of whether or not reproduction is the goal,

the roles of pursuer and pursued

have extended beyond the Bateman principle and are now quite

hard-wired into our culture. Because not every pursuer can win

and because not every pursuer is a terrible jerk,

some friend-zoning in is inevitable.

It's disappointing when it happens to you and it's easy to rely on the

"nice guys finish last" excuse,

but so far research hasn't found much

evidence for it. What's more likely is that you have

idealized the other person as a potential mate,

but a neutral observer could tell you that in reality

the two of you don't have as much in common as you think.

This is the argument put forward by Jenna Marbles

in her fantastic video. It's called homogamy.

We select our mates based on how similar they are to our own personalities,

interests and ideals for the future. And so when someone is

friend-zoned, it's often not because they were too friendly or too much of a nice

guy,

instead, it's often just run-of-the-mill incompatibility.

But let's not rule out being

too friendly or too nice from every situation just yet.

Marshall Fine described the friend zone as a penalty box that you're sent to

when your only crime is not being

buff or unobtainable enough.

Buffness falls into homogamy. It's about what someone else's interests are and

what they want from a mate.

But what fascinates me is the part about being

unobtainable. Why would being available

and present and friendly make you less attractive?

And why would being kind of a jerk, too cool,

aloof or hard to get make you

more attractive? Well, Robert Cialdini calls this

the scarcity principle. We desire things that are difficult to obtain,

because we don't like to have our freedom limited

and we act before it can be. This happens all the time in business

and it's equally true when it comes to attraction.

Using the scarcity effect yourself

is often cited as a possible escape route from the friend zone.

Make yourself less available and see if your crush

responds, or try using

the Ben Franklin effect. Benjamin Franklin wrote about how he was able to

form

relationships with other people by asking

them to do things for him.

The theory is that by doing favors for you cognitive dissonance occurs in the

person's mind.

Why would they be doing favors for you unless they

liked you? Now, it's no guarantee that you'll become more than friends but just

by simply becoming

friends, you'll be doing something quite special,

because today, we all, on average have

fewer friends, fewer close individuals we can confide in

than we did decades ago. And we hang out with those friends less

than we did before. This phenomenon was explored famously by Robert Putnam

in "Bowling Alone." For instance, from 1965 to 1995,

the number of minutes people of all ages reported spending per day

with informal socializing, hanging out with friends,

going to parties, hanging out at bars or having informal conversations

fell from 85 minutes

to just 57. In about the same time frame,

the number of picnics held fell 60 percent.

And the number of times on average we entertain friends at home

fell from 14 to 15 times a year

to a mere 8.

We spend more time than we used to on entertainment,

sleep, exercise and transportation.

Not bad things, but since the middle of the 20th century,

the two activities that many of us still do that have decreased the most

are attending worship service and hanging out

with friends. We're also now spending time on this new thing

called the Internet. It's a great tool for communication and social networks,

but like T. S. Eliot said of the telephone before it,

the Internet may simply allow us to speak to more people

than ever before, but be more lonely

doing it. Social networks have somewhat diluted

the power of the word friend. But way before MySpace or Facebook,

the word friend was on the way out. So much so that we had to start using a new

word,

'best friend.' Robert Wuthnow cautions that

on the Internet what feels social

may be less of a way for us to focus on actual

interpersonal relationships, and instead more of a

stage for us to focus on ourselves

in the presence of other people. To be sure,

virtual communities are often more equal,

because we know less information about our discussion partners, like age,

race or gender. But what we gain from

anonymity often comes at the cost of an

evening out of interests and values.

I can retreat from real-world conversations

and hide within niche communities online, where everyone

thinks like me and generally shares my worldview.

It's called cyberbalkanization.

It's when online interactions provide a lazy

environment, free from actual discussion and outside views.

Whereas the real world often forces us to deal with the greater diversity

of interests and values. Now, because we choose mates that are

so similar to ourselves, this vital exposure to new,

honest ideas often has to come from

friends - a resource that is diminishing

in our society. And so, although it's disappointing

to be friend-zoned, in a way it might be

where that other person, and all of us,

actually need you the most.

And as always,

thanks for watching.