my colleague Luis here is a tad bit off i'm afraid, i mean that hair thing, that got me my third girlfriend. she thought my life-size hair replica of her was fucking Romantic!...all the way up to the restraining order.
the following is very blunt, it's effective, just please excuse my uh..word play.
seriously though, friend zone sucks but there are ways to avoid it...rule
1. once you're in the friend zone, you ain't getting out.
2. don't be up her ass all the time. don't do stuff that you would do if you were friends with her. a sad but true fact is that if you treat her like a friend early on, it'll stick. we're not looking for a friend here man.
3. this falls into number 2 but be a "restrained douche bag" generally insult her playfully, maybe this is against what you're about, but it's really important that you realize this is simply a bait deal. for some reason that pisses me off women respond to people being dicks to them as meaning "they like me!" in short: you're nice = friend, you're a dick = you're interested. what i mean by "bait deal": you can be your awesome motherfathering self once she's your girlfriend.
4. whatever you do she can not think she's your only option. you basically have to make her think that she ain't the only fish in the sea, this falls into 3 but ignore her for a bit, like make yourself known but don't pay alot of attention to her..
example_
her: oh hey Zack!
you: hey Emily. (her name isn't Emily)
her: i'm Carol...
you: oh, my bad, she's just this..um, it's not important. what's up?
/example
this is manipulative as hell, but it triggers a competitive sorta reaction, women do feel the need to compete with each other, when she hears about this "Emily" person, she won't know it herself, but this will plant a seed of interest, she won't even need to know any Emily, if she thinks she's competing against another woman, she'll go after you. at first she'll most likely shake it off, but as long as that interest is there you can apply some of step 3 until you feel like it's the right time to ask her out.
i'm not expecting you to heed my advice, but if nothing else you try works this just might. btw this method doesn't work on everyone. and i may have forgot a few things :/
Btw, i tried that hey Emily thing on some girls, their reaction is...interesting.
any further advice, please ask.