Friends Without Benefits: A Guest Post

By Joseph McDonald

Do you want to avoid the friend zone?
Photo by freedigitalphotos.net.

Guys DREAD the friend zone. That heart-aching moment when the girl you’ve been fawning over for years says you’re the best listener, the sister she never had, or so much better than a diary! You’ve been so nice to her and her friends, listening to all their drama. But that’s just the problem... you’re too nice to too many people.

Research performed by Aaron Lukaszewski and Jim Roney at the University of California – Santa Barbara (UCSB) tested whether preferences for personality traits were dependent on who the target was. In Experiment 1, they asked UCSB undergrads, on a scale from 1 to 7, the degree to which their ideal partner would display certain traits towards them and towards others. These traits included synonyms for kindness (e.g. affectionate, considerate, generous, etc.), trustworthiness (committed, dependable, devoted, etc.), and dominance (aggressive, brave, bold, etc.). Experiment 2 replicated the procedures of Experiment 1. The only difference was that the term “others” was divided into subsets including unspecified, family/friends, opposite sex non-family/friend, and same-sex non-family/friend.

Let’s go over the do’s and don’ts so that future “nice guys” aren’t friend zoned. According to the findings, as graphed below:

Figure from Aaron and Jim's 2010 Evolution and Human Behavior paper.

1. Women generally prefer men who are kind and trustworthy. So, to get that girl, don’t be mean; that’s not the point. This isn’t 3rd grade so don’t pull her hair and expect her to know that you LIKE-like her.

2. Women prefer men who are kinder and more trustworthy towards them than anyone else. So it’s not so much whether you are nice enough, its whether she knows you are nicer to her than anyone else.

3. Women prefer men who display similar amounts of dominance as they do kindness. Dominance isn’t a bad thing, as long as you can distinguish her friends from her foes; especially her male friends.

4. To make things more complicated, women also prefer men who are directly dominant toward other men but don’t display dominance toward them or their family/friends, whether male or female. Some guys may want to befriend these other men, but be weary. Women preferred dominance over kindness in this situation, so kindness may not be enough.

These preferences may have developed to avoid mating with someone willing to expend physical and material resources for extramarital relationships, and invest greater in her and the children. Moderate kindness and trustworthiness toward others will maintain social relationships and prevent detrimental relationships, which may be why women generally prefer kind and trustworthy guys. But in all fairness, women can be in the friend zone too; just look at Deenah and Vinny (excuse the shameful Jersey Shore reference).

There are some things that guys look for in a mate, so ladies, here is a little advice:

1. Guys generally want a mate who is kind and trustworthy, too. We’re not that different; so don’t act a little crazy because you think he likes it. He doesn’t.

2. Guys also prefer women who display dominance toward other women (non- family/friend). Don’t be afraid to put that random girl with the prying eyes in her place.

Contrary to the hypotheses predicting female mate preferences, male mate preferences may have developed as a way to take advantage of strong female-based social hierarchies. No matter what the reasoning, however, if you can
1) be kinder and more trustworthy towards that special someone than anyone else and
2) display dominance over other same-sex people, then feel free to say good-bye to the friend zone!


For further details, check out the original experiment:

Lukaszewski, A., & Roney, J. (2010). Kind toward whom? Mate preferences for personality traits are target specific Evolution and Human Behavior, 31 (1), 29-38 DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2009.06.008