Should I put the moves on my pal?

DOC Love answers that age-old question: how can friends become lovers without it being awkward?

dating

DOC Love answers that age-old question: how can friends become lovers without it being awkward?

Hey Doc,

First off, I’d just like to say your principles are pure genius. All of my buddies swear by your tactics, and I’ve jumped on the bandwagon. "The System" has helped me finally realise exactly why I’m so successful with women. However, I currently find myself in a situation I’m completely and utterly stumped by.

Lola and I have known each other since year seven and been best friends ever since. We’re both now in our 20s, attended graduate school together, work together and are still attached at the hip. I was always aware that Lola was smoking hot but I was never attracted to her before. But recently one of the newest members of our circle of friends interrogated me about why I had never “put the moves” on Lola. I shrugged it off, but it got me thinking, and now I’m obsessing over her. Somehow it just now registered that Lola’s the sort of girl I always thought I might settle down with - gorgeous, wildly intelligent, challenging, adventurous and sophisticated.

Thus far, my course of action has been to put a little occasional light flirting into my byplay with Lola in order to check her Interest Level, and so far she’s been immediately responsive. I’ve been getting all the attention she gives guys she wants to date - little touches, sultry looks, etc. Her interest in her other admirers has also dropped substantially, it seems to me, which gives me the impression that she’s at least 60 per cent interested in me.

Doc, I’m still hustling other chicks because I have two big issues. First, the Challenge factor is almost completely nonexistent with Lola because she knows everything about me, and we work together very closely, do all of our extracurricular activities together and live right next to each other. To boot, it’s not as if I can just suddenly change how much time we spend together. Secondly, Lola is a big player. An iron lock on her heart is something she inherited from her father. There are few things she enjoys more than stringing a guy along for a night before crushing him under her stilettos. And while I’m not so sadistic, I bounce girls around, too, out of boredom. If anything happens between me and Lola, we’re playing with big fire and there’s potential for someone to get hurt.

Anyway, despite the problems, I really want to make something work with Lola. I’ve snuck into her affections already, now I just need to slip into the romance sector. How can I do it? How can I challenge Lola when there’s so little space between us?

Hank - who’s exhausted and begging for coaching

Hi Hank,

You’re making a dangerous assumption when you say that Lola is attracted to you. She might just be going along with your occasional light flirting because you two have been friends since year seven. And that’s the problem here. What you’re going to have to do is make all the other girls you work with laugh and flirt with you and cut down on your time spent with Lola to see if and how she reacts to it.

Hank, how do you know that Lola is getting turned off to her other admirers? Like my cousin Rabbi Love says, “That’s pure conjecture, my son.” You don’t know what she’s doing with other guys when she’s out on a date with them. Your conclusion that she has 60 per cent interest in you has no basis whatsoever. To boot, even if she’s not interested in them, it doesn’t necessarily mean that she’s interested romantically in you. The bottom line is this: You can’t grade Lola’s Interest Level in you because you have never been on a date with her.

You have to reduce the number of extracurricular activities you do with Lola. And you have to also cut the time you spend with her in general so that she has the incentive to come at you romantically if she’s going to do it. You might not be able to suddenly change the amount of time you two spend together, but you can turn the hose down slowly, and that’s what you’ll have to do. To you psych majors, you don’t have to turn the water pressure off altogether - just notch it down a little at a time. In other words, you can’t do a 180 and pretend you don’t know Lola all of a sudden.

Lola might like to string guys along until she can crush them, but that’s not going to happen to you because you have "The System." On the other hand, if someone does get hurt, it’s going to be you because you go after her too quickly. If she turns you down, you’re the one who’s going to be crushed, not Lola. She won’t be hurt at all. So don’t delude yourself that she’s going to be annihilated if something goes wrong between you. What you also need to do is cut way down on the group get-togethers with Lola and your large circle of friends. If you’re with Lola, try to get her to an isolated table where she can touch your arm. Because you’re going to have to be careful. If Lola has no romantic feelings for you and you come on to her, you’re still going to have to work with her, remember that.

How can you be a Challenge to Lola? Start talking about the other women you’re going out with and how beautiful they are and how much they dig you. The rule is that you shouldn’t talk about other women, but since you’re trying to turn Lola from a friend to a lover, you need for her to look at you in a different light.

Try to maneuver three or four get-togethers alone with Lola. See if she’s willing to do it. Make sure you have a blast, and when it’s over say, “Gee, that was so much fun. It was almost like a date!” Then check to see what her reaction is. If she agrees and says, “Yes, it was,” then she digs you romantically.

Remember, guys: To get into the romantic zone, she has to see it as her choice.