Exactly! You hit the nail right on head, Laguna!

And to answer Fizzy's question:
If she is hot, then I'm going to skip the whole damn friendship thing
and just ask her out straightaway before some other guy gets her.
If I'm interested in her, just friendship isn't going to get me what I want from her. I need her to know that I want something more than friendship from her. If she rejects me, then I wouldn't be her friend because that would be very awkward. So with hot girls, it's either ask out or nothing. Of course, if I choose nothing, then she probably isn't that hot anyway. If she's not hot, I'll just practise my social skills on her so I can go pick up a hot girl...