On Plenty of Fish, I've noticed that nearly all of the girls I'm interested in have selected one of Dating, Friends, or Hang Out in the "Looking For" category.

For someone truly looking either for cool female friends, a girlfriend, or multiple MLTRs (clearly I'm willing to take anything I'm given, haha!), which is the best one to select?

Selecting Dating would be a turnoff to those girls who've selected Friends or Hang Out (but really, why are they on PoF if they REALLY don't want to be dating - maybe sometimes it's true, but I think they just don't want to come across desperate).

The opposite seems to be even tougher - if you select Friends or Hang Out, and the girl wants Dating, she'll see you as a waste of her time.

This goes beyond the "Looking For" selection into also how you word your profile, but what have you had the most success with on PoF? Knowing you can only choose one but want to go after girls who've selected both, what strategy should I follow?

Your putting way to much weight into this. Yes with some girls it does matter what you put there, but most really don't care. Because POF is an online dating site and overall everyone is there to find someone to go out on a "date" with. I recently number closed a girl that had "Friends" there and ask her what she was looking for. Her response was she was just looking and seeing if anything caught her interest.

yea man you're on there for you not them so make sure you choose what you want to do, there's plenty of chicks on that site to worry bout something so small, i'm meeting a chick off pof this weekend at a club

i started off as a hang out but switched to dating.

you are there to date so fill the form out as such, unless you are there for freinds. friends is lame, hang out i read on someones profile can be interpreted as booty call only. PLUS i noticed some girls there for dating will not respond to those that want to hang out. so...if i were you i would put dating, just stay away from long term.