> The other thing to realize that those women who complained were not alone in the labs or classes - there were plenty of other people in those classes and no one intervened. So either people in those classes and labs did not noticed the harassment as it occurred, or they did see it and chose to do nothing. I'm sure that there was plenty of creeper nerd obsession that was occurring while I was present and didn't notice - I certainly didn't notice in the case of the people who explicitly told me they weren't feeling comfortable in classes I TA'd until they told me and I deliberately paid attention to behaviour of the people involved.

Or they're just non-omniscient 18 year olds who aren't consciously aware of other people's lives. They're not parents or teachers. You shouldn't hold them to the standards of mandated reporters. They have a right to be indifferent to events that don't affect them, whether they notice it or not.

> I want to be really clear here: If you are not the victim of many of these behaviors you are unlikely to notice it, because what to you might be an occasional weird comment for the victim is often continuous, because by definition they are there for all of the behaviour that they're subjected to.

This is a solipsistic and unpersuasive view of victimhood. "Weird" is different for everyone. What might be "unacceptable" for one person is not necessarily for another regardless of one's being a spectator or receiver of such comments. It's impossible to determine how one will react in advance. They're might be women in those classes who appreciate the "weird" comments, but those won't be ones reporting to you. You're holding the male students to the standard of the one's who are complaining, not the standards of their actual behavior as individuals.

A school is a melting pot, not just of people and thought, but also of peeves and annoyances. It's impossible to know what'll set off one's own family member, leave alone the the difficulties created by differences in culture, socialization, religion, sex, etc among adults.

> For people who do do the obsessive nerd crush: ask them out, or move on. If they so no, then move on. They subject[s] of any obsessive "nice" behaviour aren't going to generally say explicitly "stop it" as the rest of their life experience tells them that doing so can be directly harmful - my back up here from plenty of friends of mine they have experienced negative consequences from saying "no", I'm a white dude so haven't had to deal with anything similar so can't provide first person pov here - everything I have is second hand or me seeing/hearing people making sexist (and racist) comments about other students in my department

For many 18 year-old male computer nerds in the United States, college is one of their earliest or only "real" social experiences. They're just getting their feet wet with the emotional discomfort and social interactions that students in less rigorous majors have already endured through middle and high school (when these boys were likely to have been loners). "Nice" comes from a sincere and unassuming belief in the summation of "received wisdom" acquired from parents, teachers, childhood female friends, movies, etc. in their descriptions of/expectations for acceptable and romantically desirable behavior. These boys-now-men seek to apply the advice (naturally) only to be given ambiguous if not negative results contrary to what they've been promised. Some will by one circumstance or another succeed, some will persist fruitlessly until they bow out in frustration, and some never learn.

Your advice is correct. Rip the bandaid. However, it's not immediately evident to people who've likely lacked the opportunity to be comfortable enough with themselves to get to that point. And so long as you remain in your post, these situations will repeat themselves every year as a new batch of naive and unassuming teens matriculate into adulthood.