the ladder theory
 

I'm sure a lot of you know about the ladder theory. I don't have a link, so if you have not heard of it, a brief description:

a girl has two "ladders": a social ladder, with all the friends, and a romantic ladder, with her love interests. The second ladder is an exclusive club, available only to some. It is possible to make the jump from her social ladder to her romantic ladder, but it is dangerous.

Recently I made that jump.

I hung on for about a month. We were fairly close, kissing and whatnot. Then, one day, she tells me she can't see any difference between when we were friends and then going out. She quickly proceeded to lie to me and tell me that she didn't have room in her life for a boyfriend, but she promised me that we'd get back together. Like a week later, she was going out with another guy, thereby proving that she did have room for a boyfriend. Just not me.

I lost my grip on the ladder and fell into the abyss that is discarded boyfriends.

My question is this: do you guys have any tips on how to maintain a grip on the romance ladder? I can't think of any other way to go out with a girl unless I start out as her friend first, but I guess I am not agile enough to hang on for the ride once I transfer ladders. I need help.

EDIT: www.laddertheory.com There you go. graphs and everything, it'll explain my predicament.

My advice is to create an overly complex metaphor to explain relationships. Oh wait...

Anyway, my advice is to not worry about it. You have plenty of time to work out your jumping and hanging on or whatever.

Okay, that was hilarious.

Uh...I kinda had the same problem so I know what your talking about. Do what I did, not care. Obviously she doesn't like you more then some other guy. Basicly this is something you have to shrug off and relize for once, "It's actually her fault, not mine."

OR

You could break in her house and write in blood "I know where you live" over and over on her walls.

that's a good idea, but I need that blood to live

The Ladder theory, in my experience, is a very good model. Though there are stories of people successfully making the jump I don't believe that it's the most sensible goal. Once you're on the friend or as I like to call it, the "Buddy Ladder" your chances of jumping are minimal. After considering the problem I believe the best thing to do is to look somewhere else. It is widely believed in Psychology that accessability is a significant factor in attraction, so the reality is that the subject of your attention isn't actually 'special' no matter how much you believe she is. This may seem cold-hearted, but as somebody who has put a lot of time and effort into trying to jump, I think it's what has to be done.

I think part of the problem was that I split my attention between maintaining a good foothold on the ladder and kicking off someone else in a close position. So i didn't focus enough to stay there.

Did that make sense?

First off, the ladder theory is crap. Women, just like men, have one 'ladder'. Their 'ladder' is just a bit more complicated. It's not hard to make the 'jump', it just takes knowledge of the person and you can't do a few things like:
If you were too busy trying to make sure she doesn't like someone else, then you were either coming off as an asshole who doesn't like one of her friends, or as jealous. You shouldn't try to make somebody like someone else less, but rather make them like you more... if you focus on her relationship with other people, you're doomed to failure.

see, that other person was her soon to be ex-boyfriend, and I was trying to cement the "ex-" part of that. and to cement it I was making her like me as much as possible.

The way I see it, friendships-turned-romances don't work to well very often. All the people I know that have had successful relationships,for my purposes, ones that have lasted more then say... a year, met the person, started going out with them and got to know them while that was happening. You make friends with a girlfriend while they're your girlfriend, not before.

Once you get your foot stuck in the door that is friendship, the romance one usually gets closed and padlocked. That's how it works, in my experience.

Not a law, just likly odds.