any advice on making female friends?

i don't have any close female friends. there's friend's girlfriends but no girls that i hang out with on a regular basis. i think as a guy it's a good thing to have a good female friend, especially in the dating world because you can ask them questions about dating stuff and get better advice then you would from your guy friends, because she understands girls better then they do.the thing is, I know a couple girls that i think i could be good platonic friends with, but how do you become friends with a girl without having her think that you're trying to date her?if you randomly ask her if she'd like to get something to eat sometime or get a drink sometime it sounds like you're trying to ask her out.

Most of my friends are girls, but i've always had office jobs.Maybe hang out at places where a lot of girl congregate, and ask a group of them to do something fun not just one of them.