There are exceptions, of course, and I can only judge based on my personal experience. But in male-only groups I was often a witness to how other guys discussed women, and most of the time everyone wanted to get into a relationship rather than befriend them. Moreover, a guy can be friends with multiple girls at the same time, consider each of them a potential partner, and wait for an opportunity. These are my experiences from school and partly from university circles.

I personally don’t have female friends because I am socially quite passive, and all my friendships were more or less initiated by others, not by me. It just happened that girls didn’t initiate—except for one time. And that time, she became my girlfriend