I'm pretty sure that by now most of us have visited this dark, confusing and sometimes lonely place known only as "the friend zone." It was probably around back when humans were hunters and gatherers, heck I wouldn't be surprised if the wheel was invented by someone who wanted to steer away from the friend zone. It can be really irritating depending on how strong your feelings for someone are or how big of a crush you have on them. It tends to happen when you least expect it. You start spending more and more time with a friend and before you know it you develop feelings and seem to have little to no control over them. As your feelings grow, you try to find ways to let them out and confess but to your dismay the other person sees you as nothing more than a good friend.

About a month ago an old friend from high school walked back into my life and what seemed like a harmless "revival" of an old friendship turned into something a bit uncomfortable for me. This friend of mine was pretty much the only guy friend I had. There were some other ones but I felt like they were mainly there because they wanted to be around girls. He was always really nice to me, we were able to talk for hours and we would sometimes play our violins together. He seemed different compared to other guys and overall, he was really a good friend. This time around, when we met up again it was even easier to talk to him because we had so much to catch up on and he got married and had kids so I really wanted to know how married life was treating him. The conversations were going well and soon we were talking about the "good old times" back in high school and then he said "You know I used to be in love with you back then,right?"

Needless to say, the whole thing caught me off guard. I'm not sure if I was more surprised about the fact that he felt that way and I never noticed or about the fact that he decided to tell me after he's married and with kids. Maybe I'm so naive that I never noticed or maybe I had pushed him so far into "the friend zone" that it was impossible for him to crawl out? And call me old fashioned, but if you're married and you have children you shouldn't be outside looking for something that isn't missing in your house. Yes, my main resolution this year is to be more open and welcoming when it comes to love but becoming "America's next top home wrecker" isn't how I plan to go about doing so. I would probably suffer spontaneous combustion if I were the cause of ANY breakup, children or no children anyways.

After telling me, he probably thought we would all "futter wacken" a la "Johnny Depp in Alice in wonderland" and celebrate but I gave him a simple "No" and made sure he understood nothing is going to happen between us. I doubt that a man who can leave his wife of 4 years and 2 children for something that isn't a "sure thing" is the man for me. He would probably do the same to me and wouldn't be able to provide the stability and faithfulness I so dearly crave. I hope that in his mind I'm not "the one who got away." I would hate to think so since I know the feeling. Maybe we could have had something pretty back then but he never told me about his feelings and I probably misunderstood his "courtship" for friendship?

I have been in "the friend zone" before and each time I wish I would have been open about my feelings so the best advise I can give anyone who is currently stuck on the friend zone is to confess. After all, the worse that special person can do is say "no" and what if they just aren't aware of your feelings or better yet, feel the same about you? Don't wait until you can't crawl out and time passes you both by and puts you in places in your life where you are no longer free to love whoever you want.