Has anyone ever escaped the 'friend zone' ?

Yes!!!! We were "just friends" for 2 years in college. He started to like me after a year, but didn't pressure me. He says he had to wait through the "stupid" years. We took a trip together after graduation as "friends" and eloped 3 months later. We will have our 20th wedding anniversary this year, and he is still my friend! (and more....)

I did with my wife. I just told her to go away because I was tired of hearing about guys trying to hook up with her at the club(she knew i liked her). After a few months she called me because she missed me and our conversations. After that we have been inseperable and married for 10 great years in july. All that pain was worth it because life gets better and better with her.

If your goal is a relationship and shes not into that and just want to be friends, then let her go and dont talk to her. Because you arent going to get a relationship with her anyway, so maybe time and distance MIGHT remind her of what she misses about you and she just might call up and want to try to move forward.

What do you have to lose? No use obsessing and beating your head up against the wall.

I've had the chance to break out of the friend zone a couple times. The most recent one was after 5 years of not seeing her. After all that time, she saw me and saw how much I had changed and all of a sudden was interested... but the friend-zone had actually flipped on her and I wasn't interested.

And my longest relationship (2 years) was another friend-zone escape. After a year of friend-zone we broke through.

So it is possible. It works really well for awhile but seems to inevitably fall through. At least in my experience.

yes...been married going on 14 years...2 kids! :)

"it was a cool name, until that no talent ass clown won a grammy"

I broke out of the friends zone a few years ago with this girl I was nuts about in high school. The thing is, at that point, I'd lost 50lbs since high school, and she had gained about 30. Apparently, at this point, no one wanted her anymore so, suddenly I was not only good enough, but the kind of guy she wanted. We dated for a week before I broke up with her because she was ridiculously self centered. When I broke up with her, she actually said "If you break up with me now, you can't have me back." I just laughed and said, "Oh, sweetheart, I don't WANT you back." It was a total "screw you" moment for me and y'know what? Totally empowering.

my best friend of two years is soooooo hot... and i wouldn't think of even trying to make a move, because i've done it before and now me and the person don't speak at all.

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After seeing the movie today and reading over this board – some really interesting posts, by the way – and cluing in to some veiled comments from mutual friends, I’ve developed a suspicion that I may have put one of my closest male friends in the ‘friend zone.’
Initially I was interested and pursuing another guy, which ended up going nowhere, but during the time we were (marginally) involved, I had met and become friends with some of his mates.
I got on well with one in particular and we have continued to hang out (with what I thought was no romantic intent) after the situation with the first guy extinguished due to his moving away (damn).

I’ve always had the impression that no male ever wants to be a chick’s best friend. While that may be how it ends up, it was never the intention, and he never really thought ‘you know what, I’d love to hear about her shopping trips, the aftermaths of all these arses she hooks up with, and how she thinks I’m like a brother.’ However, because the circumstances around meeting and developing the friendship were completely non-romantic, it seemed more of coincidence that we happened to get along rather than deliberate pursuit that had been rudely pushed aside to the zone.
Now, about a year into this coincidental friendship, the two of us are planning to move in together as housemates, and it has occurred to me that I might have accidentally invoked the friend-zone.
After reading some of the fallouts of posters who have declared their feelings only to crash and burn, I’m wondering what is the appropriate and least cruel way to decline any such declaration. I can hardly claim to understand the full cruelty of being in the ‘friend zone,’ but I’m simply not attracted to my mate, and do feel like kind of a bitch that I may have done this to someone I value.

Sorry for the long post, but for anyone still reading, I would genuine like advice from people who have been on the receiving end of the “I think we’re better as friends” speech to help me out in identifying the least emasculating or humiliating response to someone I just don’t have the same feelings towards.