According to the late Italian poet Dante Alighiere, author of The Divine Comedy which is more commonly known for its first volume, Dante’s Inferno, there are nine circles of Hell. Each of these circles was reserved for certain levels of sins and as you descended through the different levels, the worse the punishment. “The Friend Zone” seems to have reserved its own circle of Hell on Earth.

I’m not talking about a friend that’s trying to get some benefits on the side. I’m talking about real feelings. Shocking to some I’m sure, but men as well as women develop real feelings at times. And from what I’ve seen, the friend zone will result in one or more of the following scenarios: the friend who is being crushed on falsely thinks that they have feelings as well and resulting in an unstable relationship; the friend who is crushing on the other friend gets pushed away and told “we can still be friends” (that’s a lie); after basically being told that they’re in the friend zone the person with the crush pretends to brush it off and awkwardly hangs out with their crush for a few weeks until the feelings, and whatever depression may ensue, pass away; or my favorite, the friend with the crush tries to hook up with other people and make it known, and to no avail makes themselves look desperate to anyone with half a brain.

I’ve been lucky enough to have never been thrown into the friend zone by a woman that I had real feelings for. Knock on wood. But I have certainly seen the horrors that it entails in both men and women. Whether this was the result of a long friendship eventually resulting in one person developing feelings for the other or two people talking and getting to know each other with completely different motives, I can tell how miserable the end result is.

Of course I understand that people can misconstrue another person’s intentions but there are always hints that the other person has feelings for you. There are tons of ways. If you think I’m wrong, either you’ve probably put people in the friend zone or you’re on your way there yourself. I’d rather people overanalyze their relationships with their “friends” and break up the friendship than hear more stories that start with “I think I’m starting to like ‘so and so’”.

When that sentence is said, run for the hills. Good luck to you if you’re friends with the both of those people and you get involved. For instance, if one of your girl friends tells you that she gets a crush on one of your mutual guy friends that will only result in constant nagging. “Do you think I should say something to him?” “Can you try to find out if he has feelings for me too?” “Does he like my blue shirt?” Okay, maybe the shirt question is a little much. Maybe. But even as I write this, I’m laughing a bit because it sounds like middle school or high school drama. That’s because it is! Especially in a community as small as Pace, we all know the business of the people that we surround ourselves with. It’s like a high school with a few slightly less loners and a lot more alcohol.

I digress. The point that I’d like to make is that I find it hard to blame a friend for developing feelings for someone that they’ve become close with because honestly, I don’t think that’s ever the fault of that person and the friend zone can be easily avoided. Not by the people who fall into it, but by the people who will have to throw their friends into it.

Here are three easy tips. First, watch their eyes. This is the biggest key for me in any relationship. All good conversation is engulfed in eye contact and if a person has feelings for you, their eyes will give it away at some point. Whether it seems that they’re trying to read your eyes or they have a glimmer when they look at you. When you see it, you’ll know. Next, kindness is weakness. Not always, but in this case it often is. If a friend is someone with any type of insecurity and you’re consistently kind or flattering to them, they may take that a little too much to heart and take an opportunity to be with a person who can make them feel good all the time. Don’t stop being kind, just do your best to know what they’ll expect later. If you’re really friends in the first place, this shouldn’t be too difficult. My third tip is to beware of jokes. When either you or a friend starts making jokes about being a couple or having sex, you don’t know exactly what’s going through the other person’s head. I have plenty of good friends that I can hang out with all the time but I don’t know what they’re thinking half of the time, who’s to say that someone won’t misinterpret a joke for a hint of reality?

Save yourself and your friends some trouble and try to avoid the friend zone at all costs. The only worse feeling that I can imagine than being tossed into the friend zone, is being the person who put someone there and watches them struggle. Hell, it’s college, there’s a lot more fun things to feel sorry about.