Episode V: The Friend-Zone Strikes Back

After moving back home Hannah and I started texting a lot.  We have a lot of the same interests in activities, and consequently similar plans for what we like to get out of the Summer months.  Because of this Hannah and I ended up spending a lot of time together that Summer, probably at least three days a week, and we plenty of adventures.

We did a wide variety of things Jazz games, Bee's games, hikes.  I still remember the first thing Hannah and I ever did alone together was a few days after we moved her back when we went to see The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.  We created "Adventure Days" where we would pick something we wanted to do and spend the entire Saturday, from early morning to late night, doing that thing and other related things.  For example one Adventure Day involved visiting just about every museum of history in Salt Lake.  Another involved going to the Chalk Art Festival at the Gateway and spending the whole day wandering the mall, including trying out Discovery Gateway and the Clark Planetarium.


We pretty much spent the whole Summer as "Just Friends", and it wasn't until the end of July that it dawned on me that she would be moving back to school in a little less than a month, and that I would be over an hour and a half away, and on top of all of that I realized just how much I really liked Hannah.


This sudden realization kind of jolted my brain out of the "Friend Zone".  This is usually the point I blow things.  I start scheming and trying to account for so many contingencies raises my stress level a few notches.  I can't remember how it came up, but I think the only thing that kept me from stressing this potential relationship into oblivion was when Hannah's older brother told me that he though that Hannah and I should date because we made a good couple, and that Hannah's parents agreed.


For me, having a girl's family like me is a big deal, honestly I don't think I could seriously date a girl who's family didn't like me, so this conversation went a very long way to calm my nerves.


However, there was a certain Returned Missionary that got home around this mid-summer point which would ensure that my challenge of breaking the friend-zone threshold would still be a tricky one...