Flashback #1: An awkward "date"

Nostalgia was in the air. The spring flowers were in full bloom, bringing back memories, and I had just graduated from BYU. I was leaving Provo in a week and a half for Boston. But that trip east seemed so far away to me. I wanted to instead focus on a couple girls that I was interested in.
First was this girl in my ward, Ashli. We had transcended the hometeaching bounds and started hanging out to become quite good friends. The other girl, Janae, worked as a secretary for the BioAg college. I got to know her as I came in regularly to finalize my impending graduation. What started out as casual Facebook messaging turned into "maybe we should hang out sometime" and "most definitely. you should give me a call sometime."
Two girls I was interested in getting to know better, a limited amount of time to work with. What to do? My plan was to organize a group to see Spiderman 3 on opening night. Lucky for me, I had a couple single guy friends that were willing and able to participate.
There is a law known as Murphy's law that states "Whatever can go wrong will go wrong." Pay special attention to this law as I continue my story.
A series of events disrupted my plans for a casual group activity. Two days before the movie night, I was hanging out with Ashli and her two roommates. I threw out the idea that we should all go see Spiderman that weekend. Ashli was positive, but the vibes from her roommates were unenthusiastic. In fact, if I could read one of the girls' minds, it would have probably said: 'Dude, Ashli is digging on you. You need to stop hanging out with us as a group, and hook up with her.' Needless to say, I didn't press the issue. Ashli was in--even if she was under the impression it was going to be a date.
Next, I called up my facebook friend Janae. The conversation was a little more formal than I anticipated, it was as if I were also asking her out on a date. This I did not want, but at the same time I feared being rude so I told her that my cousin was also coming and that if she wanted to bring a friend that would be cool. My reasoning was that at least in her mind, the setting was going to be more casual than a one-on-one date. After I hung up the phone with her, I was pretty sure that Janae was now under the impression that we were going on a double date. I started thinking about the predicament I was getting myself into. "Oh well," I thought to myself, "it'll sort itself out tomorrow."
The next day, Janae let me know that a friend of hers was indeed coming. I invited my cousin Andrew and another friend of mine Peter. My logic was as follows: even if 3 out of the 3 girls thought it was going to be a date, maybe the 2 guys with me could work some magic and make it more of a casual group setting. A series of unfortunate events proved to make this untrue.
1st unfortunate event – My car cannot hold 6 people. This meant that one of us was going to have to meet us there at the movie theater. I thought it would be fine as Peter was in Orem anyway, and Andrew could ride in my car.
2nd unfortunate event - Andrew, my cousin, got tied up practicing with his brother's band. Because he was running late, he called to tell me that he'd meet me there. I remember getting a sick feeling in my stomach.
3rd unfortunate event - Because Andrew called me on such bad notice, I was unable to get Peter to come down to Provo and to pick the girls up with me because he was in Orem. This meant that I would have to pick up the girls singlehandedly. At this moment, I'm pretty sure I started thinking about Murphy's law.
I drove first to Janae’s, where her friend was also. They hopped in the car. Early on, Janae pointed out that her sister was someone I used to date. When she said her sister's name, I immediately became embarrassed. My face must have undoubtedly turned red. You see, the relationship with this girl's sister did not end on a good note and memories were now flooding back to me. The evening would only get better from this moment on.
Janae and friend were probably expecting another male in the car, so I told them that my cousin was at the movie theater, but that I needed to pick up a friend on the way. Then I pulled up to Ashli’s, rang on the door, and walked her to my car where two other girls were. She gave me a look that asked, “uhhhhhh, what’s going on here?” I told her as we walked to the car that it wasn’t what she thought, and that I’d explain later. She climbed into the back half-smiling as she began to fathom the awkwardness of the situation. The conversation managed to remain shallow all the way over to the theater. With three girls and one guy, nobody dared to bring up what this situation was, although I knew that everyone was thinking about it.
Unfortunate event 4 – We didn’t arrive at the movie theater early enough. This was unfortunate for two reasons: There was insufficient time to establish a good connection with everyone in the group before the movie began. Peter burst onto the scene just minutes before we entered the theater, and Andrew still wasn’t there. Without that group chemistry, it set the tone for the rest of the evening. The second reason it was unfortunate was that the seating in the theater was complicated. Because it was opening night, there were a lot of people already in the theater when we arrived. We finally decided on one region of seating with a decent view. There were four empty seats on back-to-back rows. It looked something like this:
X X X X
|_|_|_|_|XX
|_|_|_|_|XX

I knew this setup wasn’t ideal as we’d have to choose whom we'd sit by, but I thought to myself, 'Whatever, we'll just sit as a group.' Well, Peter led the way up the aisle and he started going down the top aisle. I was next and didn't want to sit next to Peter, because I wanted another girl to so I hesitated. I was like a deer in the headlights in between the two rows. There ensued an awkward moment where everyone was thinking the same thing probably: Where are we going to sit? Janae and friend went for the bottom row, then Ashli sat next to them. I didn't want them to feel excluded so I decided to sit next to Ashli. Picture it: Trent, Ashli, Janae, and friend on the first row, Peter on the back row by himself. Andrew eventually came and joined Pete up a row.
As you can see, this evening was turning out to be an evening devoid of group engagement and interactiveness. The one thing good thing is that movies encourage silence. After the movie, the dynamics of the group situation did not change. Everyone knew that something weird was going on. The girls didn't buy their tickets. They had been picked up in a car from their respective apartments. Was this just a really nice guy that wanted to bring people together or was it kind of like a date? That is what everyone was probably wondering. The answer, of course, was not that straightforward. Hence the after-movie moment of awkwardness. We engaged in some small-talk discussing the film and after that fizzled, it was time to make a decision. Was the evening going to continue? or were we done? Of course we were not done. We had barely interacted. So we decided to go to Starbucks for some cocoa or something. We had to travel over there in two cars though so Peter met the rest of us there. Inside the coffee shop, another awkward moment struck. By now, Janae and her friend were pretty much getting the vibe that this wasn't necessarily a date so they paid for their drinks. However, Ashli beforehand had a pretty clear impression that we were going on a date and she knew that I bought her ticket for her. In a moment of silence, where we both understood that this was really weird, she went ahead and paid for my hot chocolate. I dropped off Andrew at his car, then dropped off the girls, then I walked in the living room where Andrew was watching TV. I looked at him and could not believe that evening had really happened.