My friends think a girl (20F) is still leading me (21M) on for attention

It’s going to be a wall most likely, prepare yourself

Context:

I’ve (21M) known this girl (20F) since sophomore year of college (2020-2021, her freshman year) but we started hanging out much more lately with shared interests in November of 2021, we are both in the marching band and pep band at college, enjoy baseball games even when it lasts until 12am on a school night and it’s 20°F out, among other shared interests.

February 14th, 2022 rolls around. She posted on her private snap story that she has nothing planned and was absolutely free (basically hinting she wanted a date) and I slid up, suggested a restaurant, we went, had a good time, saw other friends there, I told her I’m willing to pay but not forcing her to accept me paying and telling her I don’t expect anything out of it. After that, I took her back to my apartment, played video games for a bit, and once she got tired took her back to her dorm.

Scenarios like this repeat through April, where we do some main activity, whether it be pep band at basketball games, baseball, eating (where we’d rotate a roughly even who pays this time), whatever, and then play video games after. After one of these, I decide once we get back to her dorm, I’d like to ask her out. I make sure that it’s a completely neutral spot where if she doesn’t feel comfortable she can immediately leave to go right into her dorm, where I can’t access. I lead off saying that we are, in my perception, pretty good friends at this point. I ask her if she’d ever like to go out at some point, however, I also tell her I’d be okay with still being friends, and that regardless of her answer, I’d like for nothing to change between us. Her and I talk for about five minutes of what exactly I mean by it, just for clarity. At the end she says no, but she’s glad that nothing will change regardless of the answer, and asks “baseball tomorrow?” to kind of seal the deal of nothing changing.

Quick summer, she moves back to home, I’m still here at college doing a summer job (I live off campus, it’s cheaper), we still text and snap and call each other frequently, and she made occasional trips up here to visit (eight hour round trip for her) to come up to college to do things but also see me as well. She’s now back in time for band camp, and had me help her move into her dorm.

During this time (February until now), she’s talked about how her luck with tinder has been not great, and most guys on there want her for nudes and sex rather than a relationship. These discussions have been both direct to me and ranting on one of her private stories. I overall try not to think too much of it, especially snapchat stuff, but I’ll lend an ear to her regardless.

Some of my friends (which in the band I have a lot of them, so ears everywhere) and they’re like “dude she talks constantly about you, stuff you’ve done or are doing, etc.” and the conclusion most of them have drawn is that most of them still think she’s leading me on, or using me for attention. At the end of the day, I am seriously okay with being friends with her, because I’d rather lasting friendships than a relationship that burns and crashes and we never talk again like some other relationships I’ve had, but I want outsider’s opinions that aren’t connected at all. Any advice regarding how to go about this would be great.

TL;DR: friends basically think a girl is semi-leading me on for attention, when I’ve previously asked her out but am 100% fine with friends or a relationship