Quote Originally Posted by Coidzor
If you think she's interested in her and she's gotten your attention enough that you've noticed her digging on you and you're not opposed to her digging on you, then you go for it in my book. Also, possibly consider informing your mates when you've got designs on a woman to minimize friendly fire.

I'd recommend setting yourself a goal, or even a quota, to ask out several people on first dates just to get the practice in. And, hey, maybe you'll have something interesting develop.
Concerning minimizing friendly fire, said guy-friend could have learnt that. What's done is done, though.

I tend to not focus too much on having a relationship, so I don't see myself setting any quotas. Still, should a situation arise where a relationship seems likely, I'll be sure to act quickly.

Quote Originally Posted by Oneris
When you have that much emotional investment in a prospect with such a high potential of failure, you've already waited too long.

"Ask someone out as soon as you have romantic interest to gauge whether you should allow that interest to grow". If you're already starting to care about their answer, then get that answer ASAP.
That's the kind of advice I should take. I agree with this, as someone who's tended to wait too long to decide on what the person's answer should be. Asking one out early enough can help to kill unrealistic expectations, make it easier to cut losses (take a no as a no) and avoid becoming obsessed with getting a 'yes'.

Quote Originally Posted by Knaight
I'm assuming that one does care, has spent some time agonizing over things, so on and so forth. It's just that the relevance of that fades pretty quickly. What Icewraith described is, at best, someone who has utterly failed at moving on with their lives. In general it's someone who has never been a friend and has only been faking it to try and get a relationship. I'm not a proponent of relationship vultures; I've known a few and they're generally completely obnoxious. I just don't buy that it's somehow the default post-rejection state for people. All it really takes to avoid it is to actually interpret a statement of disinterest as a statement of disinterest, and to decide not to throw away the existing friendship.
My focus is on the italicized part.
Look, I happen to agree with you, if you get rejected, it's best to cut your losses and move on. It's just that there are many people who don't know how to do that effectively. Usually, when one gets rejected, they'd feel it, no matter how small the 'I just got rejected' feeling is. What they do with that feeling is what separates A from B, so to speak. While some people would take it as it is and eliminate that person from list of potential dates (without killing the friendship), some others would hold on to that feeling, make it bigger than it really is, and so on and so forth.

Like Oneris said, what differentiates A from B is how long one waits to ask someone out when romantic feelings for that someone are discovered. The longer you wait, the more the feelings tend to grow, and the higher the probability you'd get really hurt when rejected (except you lose interest as time passes).