Friendzoning a girl

[Estate]

Sorry for a "this one girl post" but it's a little different this time...

I dated a girl for a little bit last year. It didn't go that far, she was nice but I was into someone else at the time.
We've somehow ended up chatting a bit lately again, I'm meeting her and a few friends tomorrow for drinks. I said yes because she's a pretty cool girl but I'd prefer her as a friend than anything. I like hanging out with her but I know she's looking for more than I am with someone right now.

Best way to handle it?

I know it's a bit of a weird questions asking why I'd want to friendzone a girl but as I said, we get on well... I'm in the process of expanding my social circles in this town and figure it's one way.
I'll meet up with her anyway, if it gets too much, I can not take it any further.

 

[Franco]

Hey Estate,

I think the first thing you need to do is you need to determine whether or not this girl will actually provide you with any value as a friend, and if she does, you need to know what that value is. Is she a girl that enjoys the same interests as you? Does she have a lot of social connections to meet other friends or possibly other women? Does she have a career or some form of knowledge that can somehow benefit you?

If she doesn't, then you're better off just slowly pushing her away from you until she stops contacting you. Why would you do this? Well, if you think about it, if you're not going to contact her for anything of value, yet you continue to keep in touch with her, then she's going to keep pushing for things like "getting together one-on-one for a drink," or possibly going out and doing something else together. This is just going to go on and on and probably wear away at you until you eventually just want to not respond to her anymore. The easiest way to wade her off of you is to just start responding to less texts, be busy, and always say you have other plans when she asks to hang out. This will usually cause 99% of girls to eventually stop contacting you.

However, if you feel like she does provide value to your life in one of the ways mentioned above, then you need to quickly start involving her in those things so that you can "show" her what kind of relationship you are expecting of her. Does she have lots of friends? If she does, then reject any invites from her to hang out one on one, and accept invitations where she wants you to hang out with her and her friends. Does she like to go to concerts of the same type of music that you do? Then invite her (and her friends) to a concert with you (and your friends) so that it's a group situation with a similar interest.

Think about the things girls do to you when they try to friendzone you, and then just do it to them!

Hope this provides some value,

Franco