Keeping it casual

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So I'm in my first year of this REALLY prestigious animation MFA program that Pixar and Dreamworks recruit from regularly, and pretty much every single girl here fits the criteria of dream girl, save this one I feel more fraternal about. I know the best thing to do in this situation is to be better friends with EVERYONE before making any kind of serious moves, but I can't help but spazz out when a pop singing, piano playing ballerina with animation skills that exceed my own raises her eyebrows at me.

I interact much more smoothly with the girls that are already in healthy relationships or the one I feel that fraternal bond with. I'm getting kind of nervous that fraternal girl's gonna suspect I talk so much more to her because I like her, and she'll confess some feelings for me, and I'll have to give her that dreaded "I like you like a sister" talk.

I guess what I'm asking is... any tips for becoming better friends with girls your undeniably interested in?

Wow, first off congrats on what sounds like a really good program.

Okay, I think we all have an internal censor, both those of us on the spectrum and those of us who are 'normal' (and no such thing as 'normal' anyway and how boring the world would be if there was! ) So, I think we are familiar with the experience of quickly reviewing something before we say it. I have had a considerable amount of success making a conscious decision to turn down my internal censor so that the default setting is that it's probably okay to go ahead and say it anyway, unless it really jumps out at me as inappropriate. In this way, I have taken it from an analytic left-brain skill to a more feel-and-texture right-brain skill. And this, combined with the zen approach of letting a medium mistake merely be a medium mistake, has helped my social skills a considerable amount.

I think me being more open is appealing, even if I do make mistakes. I just try and pay attention and thus not make more than three mistakes on the same topic, and sometimes I catch it at two mistakes. And the standard really is that low! If I have a goal of never making a mistake, wow, I would just be too tight and nervous.

Now, it is potentially blurring between friendship and dating. And it's a good that you're also starting to think of gentle and matter-of-fact turn down skills. Now, you can also wait too long, and the young women may think of you more as a brother. Like people in a kibbutz in Israel I think tend to think of each other as family and date outside the group.

'You want to grab a cup of coffee.'

I'd just keep it real simple and straightforward. Maybe more steps before romance, but maybe not. Also depends on how she pongs it back.

Alright, great insight, Aarvark! Your take on the internal censor was practical, yet encouraging.
Anyway, I actually started with one by saying "Are you a coffee drinker?"
To which she replied, "Only when I need it."
Which threw me off, because the conversation was SUPPOSED to continue with "Do you wanna grab some?"
But that question would have been silly, as she'd obviously already be drinking coffee if she needed it. So after an awkward pause, I blurted "Well, you wanna grab something... sometime?"
She paused and said "Maybe after the semester's over."
To which I MAY have over responded "Awesome!"
So I think I made it clearer than I intended that I was attracted to her, but I doubt either of us want to do anything rash as we'll be doing this EXTREMELY intense summer course where Dreamworks divides us into teams of five and give us mere weeks to impress them with an animated short... and guess who's team SHE's on? It's actually how a friend met his current fiancee, but they waited until AFTER the course to start dating (He's got an AS brother and knows the girl, so I'll be getting his advice as well).

So, now that the semester's over, I guess my question NOW is... do I keep interactions limited to team meetings for a while, start from square one with "Wanna have coffee?" backtrack with "Semester's over... still wanna grab something?" and most importantly, is a clarification of intention necessary?