10 Handy Steps To Coming On To Your Friend

Ever have feelings for your (same-sex) friend? Have no fear. This has happened to me multiple times, and it’s really not as bad as you may think. Just follow these helpful steps:

Step 1: Always make sure to hit on your friend whose sexuality has been ambiguous and largely in question to those around him or her. This makes the courting process all the easier. Overanalyze their every word and gesture to pick up on any tendencies that could be prescribed as gay. This won’t make it weird for them and more obvious that you’re probably into them, but actually quite the opposite; it’ll make them appreciative of the recently increased attention they’re getting from you.

Step 2: Once you’ve confirmed your friend is indeed of your persuasion, it’s time to find the perfect mutual friend to do your dirty work. Without even being proper friends with them in real life, and perhaps not even proper friends on Facebook, go ahead and send them an awkwardly-worded message. In this, you’ll ask them to casually bring up your name in conversation with the friend and see how he or she reacts. The message can include phrases such as, “I know this is so high school of me” and “we should all hang out sometime,” and definitely ask questions like, “have they ever mentioned me in that way?” and “is this a weird thing to ask?” Once the message is sent, proceed to obsessively check your Facebook messages, and once you see the check mark affirming that the person has read the message but has yet to respond, by all means immediately freak out.

Step 3: Upon getting the news from the mutual friend that they felt out the situation, took the temperature of your friend’s reaction to the news of you liking them and have advised you should stick to being friends, definitely don’t accept that as an answer. Kindly respond to the Facebook message, thank them for their work in the matter and then start scheming how to take things into your own hands.

Step 3A: Ask him or her to hang out way too often.

Step 3B: Make the asks seem more and more date-like.

Step 3C: Invite yourself to group gatherings to see him or her as much as possible.

Step 4: Eventually succumb to your lesser judgment and confess that you have feelings for your friend. Although ideal, an in-person confession isn’t necessarily the only route to take. Try these options: a) slipping it into a casual phone conversation, cutting them off dramatically mid-sentence, b) texting them a long paragraph that gets cut off and sent in out-of-order incomprehensible chunks, or c) striking up a conversation on Facebook one night when you’re halfway through a bottle of wine and feeling drunk and sorry for yourself.

Step 5: Get rejected for any number of reasons: “I don’t want to ruin our friendship!” “You’re just not my type!” “Sex? With YOU?” “I hate your friends!” “You always smell like cat litter and regret!”

Step 6: Start scoping for alternatives to get over your friend. After swearing you’d given up Tinder and OkCupid for life, immediately re-download those, load up new profile pics and spruce up that old profile that still has you just having graduated college and new to the city. Send out about 100 messages on OKC and swipe right about 100 times on Tinder.

Step 7: Definitely bemoan to all your friends about your situation and demand they have someone to set you up with, or else. Asking them, “what good are you if you don’t have someone to set me up with?” is a good way to get them to help you out.

Step 8: Once your friend initiates the group setting in which to be introduced to your setup, be sure to assume the person saw a photo of you and naturally must be into you. Lay the flirting on thick and get really chummy with his or her friends, too. Be sure to cling to this person throughout the duration of the evening even if may not seem warranted. Get a phone number and text them later you had a great time meeting them. Suggest a time to get together, perhaps drinks or dinner. The crushing disappointment you feel when they respond suggesting another hangout but clearly emphasizing it’ll be another group setting — not to mention using the royal “we” — is natural.

Step 9: Discover your friend started seeing somebody. And somebody who you think is way beneath you, so it’s an added blow to your self-esteem. And not only hear it through the grapevine or through a friend of a friend or even that one friend you solicited on Facebook chat; hear it directly from your friend’s lips to your ears, like it’s a nonchalant thing to tell a person who just poured their soul to you.

Step 10: Try to normalize your friendship again while burying any remaining feelings for them, which involves repeating step 6 until the end of time.