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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 6, 2023

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Well, from the person's report about what happened:

Recently, she's been more open than usual, getting closer to me when we're working on a problem together and being more chatty/flirty. She and I are both single and have been for a while. I thought that she was interested in me and I decided to take a shot in the dark. I pulled her aside after a study session last week and once everyone else had left I brought up how we're both single and asked if she wanted to be friends with benefits.

It could actually be inferred that she MIGHT possibly have been interested in this guy if he'd just...asked her to go on a date instead of proposing this no-strings sex arrangement.

As a woman, it would imply, to me, that 1.) the guy only wanted me for sex and didn't want to do romantic stuff because...? 2.) he's embarrassed to be seen with me or something?

It comes off like he regarded her as good enough for sex but not good enough to actually be his girlfriend. I'm not sure why the guy thought she'd be more amenable to banging him than to dating him.

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See, this is my takeaway. It's possible this girl was indeed attracted to the guy and would have said yes to a date. If that was the case, I don't think what happened is that she immediately decided she hated the guy and wanted to destroy his life, my guess is she went home and cried because she's been single for a while and a guy she thought was cute thought she wasn't good enough to date.

...and then maybe she talked to her friends about it, and her friends were all like "good god what a creep/asshole/jerk/whatever" at which point the school's gossip-network took care of the rest. Girls asking each other "Did you hear about so-and-so?"

Maybe this is another one of those inferential distance moments but to me your and @EdgeCityRed's take-aways seem like the most obvious interpretations.

It comes off like he regarded her as good enough for sex but not good enough to actually be his girlfriend. I'm not sure why the guy thought she'd be more amenable to banging him than to dating him.

Exactly.