Also losing it at this girl changing from "I want to draw you" to "the color of your lips is pretty" like that'll make her seem less gay
Exactly! If anything the opposite seems to be true
Are you sure? "The color of your lips is cute" can be (and in this case was) interpreted as "The color of your lipstick is cute" while "I want to draw you" is a bit more difficult to interpret as anything other than "Youre so beautiful that I want to draw you".
Idk I've asked people if I could draw them in entirely platonic situations and been asked in the same (including nude) so like I guess it just doesn't come off the same to me? Like anything and everything is viable for art practice, if a girl is looking at my lips enough to comment on them and I'm not wearing something that stands out as much as like purple lipstick, I'm assuming she is thinking about what else my lips could be doing.
That sounds reasonable, not an artist so Ive never experienced those situations. Although, middle schoolers in Japan might not have that much experience with art models. And given the average manga-schools crusade against them, any kind of lipstick might stand out.