I’m again not sure how far this generalizes, but among the kind of men who read Less Wrong (which is a product of both neurotype and birth year), I think there’s a phenomenon where it’s not a matter of a man being cognitively unable to pick up on women’s cues, but of not being prepared to react in a functional way due to having internalized non-adaptive beliefs about the nature of romance and sexuality. (In a severe case, this manifests as the kind of neurosis described in Comment 171, but there are less severe cases.)
I remember one time from my youth where a woman was flirting with me in an egregiously over-the-top way that was impossible to not notice, but I just—pretended to ignore it? Not knowing what was allowed, it was easier to just do nothing. And that case was clearly not a good match, but that’s not the point—I somehow didn’t think through the obvious logic that if “yang doesn’t step up”, then relationships just don’t happen.
I’m again not sure how far this generalizes, but among the kind of men who read Less Wrong (which is a product of both neurotype and birth year), I think there’s a phenomenon where it’s not a matter of a man being cognitively unable to pick up on women’s cues, but of not being prepared to react in a functional way due to having internalized non-adaptive beliefs about the nature of romance and sexuality. (In a severe case, this manifests as the kind of neurosis described in Comment 171, but there are less severe cases.)
I remember one time from my youth where a woman was flirting with me in an egregiously over-the-top way that was impossible to not notice, but I just—pretended to ignore it? Not knowing what was allowed, it was easier to just do nothing. And that case was clearly not a good match, but that’s not the point—I somehow didn’t think through the obvious logic that if “yang doesn’t step up”, then relationships just don’t happen.