I think I put myself in the friend zone

We were on our way out of school and I was out of wit. After a few minutes of spiraling around the traditional mundane humdrum "how was your summer" I was started to wonder how successful I could be if I was dating a teacher from the same school. How does one spiral? Well in my case I was allowing silences to be uncomfortable, welcoming conversation from strangers, and stammering. Either of these alone are enough to plant me firmly out of contention for conversant of the year, but I think my self doubt may have been the real force pushing the conversation out of reach. Perhaps I could have done something, but at the time I really wasn't interesting in the dating of a co-worker, the daily droning on about what the principal did or which student threw a chair. Moreover, I didn't see this girl downing brews with the experience of big ten school graduate. Granted, thats a skill that really shouldn't be on my list for Mrs right or even Mrs. Right about now, but after the first day back, which is after the first summer break, which is after my first year of teaching...I was more interested it getting shitfaced than getting anything else on my face. Once we hit the bus and were forced us to a) have loud conversation or b) respect the 89 people crammed onto the bus b/c the trains stopped running, and it became clear that I would rather pay attention to the stream of surly adults squeezing by me than her that she dropped the whole "I'm dating a alt rock pop star." Hmm, I thought to myself, did I just get squeezed out, was in the running the whole time? Was the akward conversation my own ticket to the friend zone? If I had found another way home could I perhaps not be the dick in the glass jar?