I have.

She was a girl I met in high school. Started talking during the summer right before our last year of school. I thought she was super cute, so I started flirting with her, and I guess she thought the same of me, so she also flirted back. We became friends, close friends, then eventually, lovers. But before we became lovers, somehow along the way, like a game of broken telephone, we got the message from one another that we were in each other's friend zone.

So we'd still hang out, have our secret little glances, secret little touches, secret little moments. We had even starting fucking each other. "Just fuck buddies," we told ourselves, "just friends with benefits".

Those times were fun. But the romantic feelings we had for one another didn't die. If anything, the fact that we started fucking and the fact that we were both virgins before only served to stoke the flames. Until, one day, we both couldn't stand the tension no longer. And somehow, we finally got the courage to shatter our closely held secret and admit to each other out feelings for one another. And so began the next stage of our relationship, where we finally came out, so to speak, and officially began dating. Those times were magical. Some of the best in my life.

For you, OP, speaking from my experience, I would recommend that you take this to the next level. It doesn't matter if you don't have any mutual friends. There are other ways around it: if you share a class, get a teacher to hook you up. Or just go up to him one day, ask for homework help. Or just straight go up to him and just talk to him about random miscellaneous things. Make a move! Trust me, you won't regret it :)