You'd think so, but if you are a single older guy, 'Being nice to people.' is seen as 'Being desperate for attention or interaction', at least until you hang out enough for people to realize 'oh no, he's fine with being ignored he's just a nice guy.' Which is wild to me because I see being an obnoxious asshole as being desperate for attention.

Social situations are completely fucked these days, especially with dating because of the toxic shit that both men and women are taught by 'dating gurus' on the internet. What happens is that people ask their friends advice on stuff, but their friends who are into these types of relationship dramas are getting their advice from people who are pushed on the algorithm, who are almost all people who are complete drama freaks. The amount of normalization (and romanticization) of whacky creepy behavior is wild.