Right. And unfortunately, the spiral doesn’t have to be as extreme as described above in order to get a guy to not make a move. Instead it could be as simple as “Hmm, I’d like to talk to her, but I heard online that some women find it annoying… I don’t want to be annoying, so…” And if the general cultural consensus is that women dislike being approached as a rule, then we would expect guys who are courteous and pro-social to follow the rule, while guys who don’t care about those things to break it.
Right. And unfortunately, the spiral doesn’t have to be as extreme as described above in order to get a guy to not make a move. Instead it could be as simple as “Hmm, I’d like to talk to her, but I heard online that some women find it annoying… I don’t want to be annoying, so…” And if the general cultural consensus is that women dislike being approached as a rule, then we would expect guys who are courteous and pro-social to follow the rule, while guys who don’t care about those things to break it.