> 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.

That was literally my point. In this and other similar posts we have numerous people talking about how they have not witnessed any harassment, and then stating that because they are unaware of it, it doesn't happen, or isn't actually very common.

> 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. There 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.

..yes? just because everyone else in a class or work environment is ok with sexist behavior doesn't mean that it is therefore ok. That's literally the whole problem.

> 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.

Ah, they haven't learned not to be a creeper and semi-stalker, therefore it is acceptable behaviour? We'll just ignore that creeper/obsessive nerd is sufficiently well established that it occurs in TV shows and movies.

But more to the point, even if you take the behaviour as being perfectly acceptable, it quite clearly is an unpleasant experience that pushes women out of tech. It even happens in the work place, and again because of the baseline treatment of women in tech, they do not complain, they just leave the field.

> 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.

Ok, I'm not sure I understand this. My advice was not rip the band aid, my advice was for the person with a crush to ask someone out and move on if they say no, along with a very clear explanation of why the subject of their crush is not necessarily going to "rip the bandaid". The concept of being "led on" because they haven't explicitly been told no is BS.

> 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.

I don't understand what you're saying here? What do you mean by "staying in my post"?

> a new batch of naive and unassuming teens matriculate into adulthood.

The /vast/ majority of people, including nerds, seem capable of not being creepy and/or obsessive towards women. If everyone else, again including other nerds, is able to understand the basics of how you interact with and treat others and people of different gender why does one group get a pass?