Bit of a long story but I ended up trying to AFC style date a girl I liked. I ended up in this position due to a combination of bad communication, mis-reading signs, admittedly a dash of oneitis, and part of me just wanted to see what would happen dating like I used to. I started hanging out with a girl I had vaguely known for a while but not well, after a couple of dates I caught feelings and eventually it dragged on with mixed signals and unclear intentions on both sides. Eventually I decided to be clear and specifically asked her to go on a date with me and was straight up rejected.

Here are the big points I observed/reinforced:

Showing intent is key - just the sheer stress of not knowing what was going on between us was really getting to me, it could have been avoided if I had made my intentions clearer from the start

Trust your gut instinct - if you have decent experience with attraction and dating, you'll be pretty safe to observe her reactions and trust your instincts on what is happening. You'll usually be right. I knew deep down that she was not responding to my escalations and I should have called it sooner

If she likes you, she'll make it obvious - if a girl likes you she will make time to you, be receptive to your escalations and generally make it easy for you. If it feels hard then trust your gut instinct about what that means

If you're not sure how she feels, polarise early and hard - if a girl is unreceptive you never had her anyway, if she's receptive then you'll be fine, if she's neutral then you'll have your answer in no time

Don't stop talking to other people - speaks for itself really, at the very least it will help keep you grounded and abundant.

I know a lot of this stuff is pretty basic but I wanted to unpack it, maybe it will help some beginners. Good luck out there gang!