I have a belief that I considered as logically true and obvious. But just a moment ago I thought - what if it's just bullshit?

Is dating someone, attracting someone, making a romantic relationship harder than making a friendly relationship, just hooking up with someone, being party buddies?

My logic tells me - people, in general, want to have many friends. But at the same time, these people want in general only one romantic partner or no romantic partner at all. So it should be logical that it's harder to make someone your girlfriend/boyfriend than your friend.

But is it so? I remember when I was ~16 and for the first time went to "normal school". Before, for 9 years I walked to school that was kinda "rich kids school", where we were in "safe zone" and I didn't really catch any social skills. When I started this new school I couldn't match myself, I wouldn't call myself socially anxious because I am generally hard extravert but I lacked experience and every basic social thing was hard for me, the thing I remember the most was how hard and "strategy needed" was getting into circle of talking people! Enough said - It was the hard time for me to even make this friendly relationship, not even talking about partying (which I love now).

Also, the other thing is my last experience. I have a friend that I would call really similar to me. Our characters are almost the same, our physicality is similar too. We are both the type of very-tall-skinny-person. Our fashion style - similar too, even our "faces" - ofc they don't look the same, but we both have a similar hairstyle, do not have beard etc. And we both met the same girl through the common friend but at different times. He was first to that. But despite all of these similarities between us they didn't end up dating or anything. But when I met her I thought she is nice and kinda started flirting, talking with her more than to the other people that we went out with, basically treated her in a different way than I would treat girl that I'm not interested in, and the next day she texted me, and after 2 days I proposed a date for which she agreed. This relationship didn't come out very successful but I learned a lot.

But also, since I don't really have much experience, this was basically my first time, I have thoughts of "missed opportunity", that it will be hard to find another interested girl that I will like too, especially that I live in the environment where there are not many girls.

But isn't this really bullshit? Isn't this just the same situation I had these few years ago with "getting into a circle", making friends from new people, being social, partying? And my false assumptions that block me from thinking that the girls would be attracted to me in a romantic way as easy as they would be attracted to me in a friendly way? Because my assumptions about this friendly way changed a lot since I started this school 3 years ago. Now my thoughts are more like - "Will I like these people?". I don't even consider thinking in the way "What do I do to make them like me", "What do I do to make them approve of me". Maybe it's the same? Maybe when my thought naturally will be more like "Do I find her attractive and want something romantic-like" instead of "Does she find me attractive" all things will change. Because what I've seen in terms of my friendly relationships - I assume that people will like me naturally - and I'm usually right, and even if some people don't: 1. There are always these people that do like me and I find them much more interesting. 2. Why would I bother? I'm not interested in them too now. If they don't like me they must be valuing different things and like different things - so I wouldn't have fun with them anyway. And I don't really have any problems with these friendly relationships. But I struggle with romantic and I'm inexperienced. Is this because of that?