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How to Get Out of the Dreaded Friend Zone!

Admit it. You've got a crush. Unsure if the object of your crush returns your affections? Feel like your heart is on hold? Find out how to move forward and out of that dreaded Friend Zone for good.

Admit it. You've got a crush. In fact, you're crushing hard. And while having a crush on someone can be fun (the thrill of the unknown, the butterflies in your stomach when he calls, emails, smiles at you), it can also be stressful. Not knowing if the object of your crush returns your affections. Feeling like your heart is on hold. Getting stuck in the dreaded Friend Zone. Sound familiar?

Before you let yourself fall any harder for your crush, you need to assess the situation and pick a course of action. Do you want to keep your feelings a secret, forever harboring unrequited love/lust in hopes that he'll one day look at you, profess his undying devotion, and offer you a happily ever after proposition? (Keep dreaming!) Or do you want to extricate yourself from the Friend Zone, forever altering your current limbo status in hopes of at least finding out where you stand? As scary as that second scenario sounds, it's the one to choose. After all, you deserve to know if your feelings are reciprocated. And if not, you deserve to let go and move on, to eventually find someone more deserving of your love and loyalty.

At the very least, you deserve to get out of the dreaded Friend Zone.

Signs He May Be Into You
Before taking the plunge, that is, confessing to your crush, you should probably assess your current relationship status for signs that he might be into you. Ask yourself the following:

Do you regularly spend a lot of time together? (If so, that's promising!)
Have you met his circle of friends? (If not, why not?)
Does he make a point to make plans with you? (Or is he more of a last-minute/spontaneous kind of guy? If so, uh-oh!)
What does his relationship past tell you about his ability or lack thereof to commit? (You do the math.)
Do you discuss your current love lives? (If he's telling you about all the other girls he's dating, beware -- possible player alert!)

By answering the above questions, you may just get an indication of how your crush really feels about you. If it's clear he's just not that into you (the other girls, his inability to make plans, the fact that you actually know very little about him), it might be wise to permanently park your passion and instead keep things platonic. At the very least, it would be a good idea to stop making more out of your friendship than there actually is. But if all signs point to maybe (his daily phone calls/emails/text messages asking to hang out, his circle of friends who all think you're pretty cool, etc.), you owe it to yourself to find out if he's into you.

Hope for the Best, Prepare for the Worst
Before you confess to your crush, you need to mentally and emotionally prepare yourself. Just as it's possible that he might be harboring romantic feelings for you, it's equally possible that he might not share your warm and fuzzy affections. You need to be able to handle that news with dignity -- at least until you're in the privacy of your own home, where you're free to agonize over his rejection as you see fit.

Next, you need to figure out the best way to confess to your crush. If you're not ready for a face-to-face conversation, try another real-time approach like calling him on the phone. Texting, emailing, IMing, or posting a message on his fave social networking site are all available options but not recommended. After all, his response could take hours, days, or weeks, depending on how he feels. Do you really want to endure that kind of open-ended uncertainty? (The answer is no.)

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