Yep, I'm quite familiar with Ladder Theory. One of my best friends in my hometown and I even had a precursor variant of it called "The Friends Zone".
And I know that's exactly why she freaked, but it didn't really bother me too much when she did. I was just like, "Oh well, kind of saw that coming, but I had to give the shot anyway."
And I now have one of the old high school cheers from my alma mater going through my head
"Be-e Aggressive Be-e Aggressive BE-E A-G-G-R-E-S-S-I-V-E BE AGGRESSIVE!"
...It's sad how many of them I can still remember even though I never was a cheerleader.
