Auntie SparkNotes: Every Guy I Meet Friendzones Me

Dear Auntie,

In middle and high school, my friend group was essentially all males, except for the occasional girlfriend that was dragged in. My friends don’t really think of me as a girl (well, they know I’m a girl, but that fact frequently slips their minds), and I’m comfortable with that. I was, and still am, very proud that I can fit in well with guys and have a perfectly healthy and supportive relationship with them that doesn’t get weird and complicated.

The problem is that now, a semester into college, I’ve made a lot of guy friends pretty quickly, but I also seem to be friendzoned by every guy I get close to (that is to say, they’re never interested in meeting up one-on-one when it didn’t have to do with club activities or classwork). I’ve looked up some body language interpretation/guides and my body language is basically in line with typical signals of attraction or disinterest, so I know it’s not that. Am I somehow communicating disinterest in some other way? Or am I just fundamentally undateable?

How can I fix this? Am I actually just stuck being forever alone? I’ve been in two reasonably long-term relationships before (2.5 years and 1 year, respectively), both of which ultimately fell apart because we realized that we were better off being friends.

Well, let’s start here: Having spent 3.5 years of your dating-eligible years successfully coupled-up, the answer to your “Am I undateable?” question is a resounding DERP.

I mean, really, Sparkler. Not only have you already been in two long-term romantic relationships, but they were remarkably long-term for someone your age. That is an impressive quantity of relationship to have under your belt before you even get to college.

And while those relationships might have ultimately ended in a decision to be platonic, they clearly lasted quite a long time being romantic before you reached that conclusion… which is also quite a long time during which most other guys wouldn’t have bothered to pursue you, of course, simply by virtue of the fact that you weren’t available.

In other words, I think we can safely say that you don’t have a problem with being considered desirable by dudes, and that your failure to ensnare one within the first few months of college is most likely a matter of bad luck and/or lousy timing. For what it’s worth, the first semester of freshman year is kind of complicated, relationship-wise. Some people are still trying to make it work with high-school girlfriends or boyfriends back home; some people are so thirsty that they just want casual hookups with any sentient being with two legs; some people are so busy trying to find their socks and remember to feed themselves that they don’t have the mental bandwidth to add romance into the mix at all.

And that’s even before we get to the part where not every guy who interests you is going to like you back, no matter how charming and objectively unobjectionable you are.

In other words, there are a million reasons why your first-semester attempts at dating might not have panned out, and none of them require fixing or hyperanalysis on your end. (Pro tip: The nice thing about being confident enough to pursue someone by asking him to hang out one-on-on, in actual words, is that won’t feel compelled to examine the angle of your elbow or whatever for clues to your motives.) And if you just wait for, like, five minutes, and keep pursuing any interesting romantic leads, odds are good that you will eventually stumble across a guy who returns your interest, and who will demonstrate as much by responding positively to your attention.

With that said, there’s one more thing, and it might not even be an important thing, but it’s worth mentioning nevertheless: While it’s great that you can be friends with guys without it getting weird, it’s also kind of weird in and of itself that you consider it a point of pride. And depending on what your dynamic with your group of guy friends is like, there’s a possibility that you and your squad o’ dudes are coming off as a little bit sketchy. Not saying it is sketchy, just saying it could seem like it. There are people out there who surround themselves with members of the opposite sex because they crave attention and validation, and if you’re being mistaken for one, that actually could be potentially off-putting to guys who would otherwise like to date you.

But if that is what’s happening, there’s an easy fix for it: While you’re looking for dateable dudes on campus, you can expand your search to include a few kick-ass ladyfriends as well.

Got something to say? Tell us in the comments! And to get advice from Auntie, email her at advice@sparknotes.com.
Want more info about how this column works? Check out the Auntie SparkNotes FAQ.