FRIEND-ZONED

Not sure exactly where to start... but while I was in Mexico I was teasing Jamie that she should go for  Patrick (the guy she was dating at the time was... not working out). She asked me, "why don't you date him?". The question knocked me silly: Patrick had been FRIEND-ZONED. He was this wonderful, safe, great friend in my life and I had very intentionally *not* thought of him like that since almost the begining of our friendship 9 years ago. It took me a while (like a month or two after the Mexico trip) to work up the courage to say something to him about it... and then it took him a bit to figure out that he really was up for trying a long distance relationship with quite a bit of risk to it (neither of us wanted to lose the friendship). But... we went for it! Oof!