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Ah, yes. I've seen that advice, as well.
I don't think I've ever seen anyone remarking on it actually working, though. Most of the time people comment how nothing ever comes of it, and I've never actually seen it occur in real life.
If I had to venture a guess, this idea stems as an artifact of european style dating, where I've heard a more slow, organic, 'start as friends and become more' is seen as a standard thing, whereas in American it's often considered openly verboten.
That's mostly a wild supposition on my part, though.
I would say it is considered the ideal here in Europe, yes. But it mostly works for the guys who don't struggle with women anyway. If you're an average guy with average social skills you will be able to meet women at bars and clubs and might get lucky. But if you try to weasel your way into a friend group with plenty of women, they will be nice and considerate but simply not invite you to most events except the biggest, which will functionally be the same as the bars and clubs you've already been frequenting. If you try to invite them to something, they will not show up. If you get pushy, they will start actively avoiding you.
I think many women really struggle to process the male perspective. As a woman, as long as you are nice and social and put in just a minimal effort to get along with any guy, he will generally don't mind your presence or even want to actively invite you to every social event he knows. More women is ALWAYS better. As a woman, your main problem is the opposite; You're bombarded by male attention and need to make sure to avoid the lazy fuckers, the losers, the stalkers, the cheaters and so on. Otherwise you'll end up being one of those wifes who does all the house work while also working full time and also caring for the kids, or you will end up having to bankroll your husbands stupid ideas that go nowhere or you will be replaced by a younger model once you're older etc.
As a guy however even woman you're friendly with will by default see no reason to invite you to any social event. All else being equal, a social event gets worse with more average men present. Men will want to come less since they want to meet women, women will want to come less since they want to meet the good men.
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As a woman in America I only ever considered the "become friends and fall in love" method.
As a very plain woman I secured a husband by working at a IT Service Desk where I was the only woman and joined a fantasy football team without knowing anything about football (I picked players based on the vibes I got from their name.) I fell for the best man out of the bunch, someone of healthy weight, high intelligence, and emotional self-awareness. He fell for me. It probably helped that by that time half the single guys (and one of the married men) were interested in me, driving up my perceived value.
It took two years of spending time in male dominated spaces, but I think I married the best man I could.
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