I'm kind of learning that no matter what you do or say as a single male, it's always going to be interpreted differently than it was intended to be. For instance, hypothetically speaking, a single male asked a single female to attend the wedding of one of his friends. The male is thinking, "This is a great opportunity to get to know her better, see old friends, and have a fun weekend." She, on the other hand, thinks, "Oh no! Does he like me? Is he going to ask me out? How do I feel about him? Will it make things awkward between us if I go and he does ask me out? Or will it be more awkward if I don't go and he was hoping to ask me out? What are the chances he just wants to be friends?"
The margin of error, then, lies not in the interpretations of the afformentioned message of communication, but how that message was transmitted from the male to the female. When the guy said, "What are you doing on [insert date of wedding here]?" the reply given was, "I don't know. That's a long ways away. Why?" The male then responds, "Well one of my friends is having this thing called a wedding, and I was wondering if you would go?" To this point the male believes he's kept it very casual and unawkward by not saying things like "with me" or "be my date." The reply given by the female, however, goes like this: "Umm...[long pause]. I'm not sure... [long pause]." At which point the male then says, "If you don't want to go, that's fine. I jus thought I'd ask," again trying to not make it awkward and keep it a low key request. She then says, "i just want to think about it for a while."
From all the past experiences from the male's perspective, this means ONLY one thing. What it means to this perticular female is yet unknown. In the past however, it has meant, "I don't want to hurt you, but NO."
While awaiting the response, the male begins to over-analyze the situation and question the way he presented the request. His early conclusion is that she will refuse to go, appologyze for not going, then not want to spend time together in the future so as to avoid any awkward situations, thus ruining the friendship and any hope or possibility for soemthing more.
Now remember, this is all hypothetical. And apparently people do actually read this thing, so don't go around telling people you know who this is about and what the real story is because in all honesty, you probably don't.