The women I had had in a friend group like that, that I'd known since childhood, got married and/or a demanding career, and then stopped having time to talk or do anything social.

And they don't even have kids, life is still just too demanding for a social life to also exist.

And and, I am realtively odd in that I am a guy who grew up with more female close friends than male friends, who got invited to the otherwise girls-only Buffy/Firefly/etc semi-regular watch nights.

But your whole reply here is a non sequitir...

...he's saying that women broadly, you know, women he doesn't already know, loudly said "don't approach us", so, he didn't.

Combine that with late stage capitalism is utterly exhausting, for everyone, and ... women broadly put the burden on themselves to initiate any new relationships with new men, and then did not initiate any new platonic relationships with new men.

Your reply is 'wait you just don't already know a bunch of women?' Yes, obviously, duh, its inherent in the premise of their statement, in the context of the post.

The whole thing at discussion here is meeting new people. Your answer is 'what, you don't just already know people?'

This is an antagonistically useless thing to say.

What makes you think I have friends if I don't leave home.

Nope, not once in my life. But granted, I studied for a male dominated degree, I work in a male dominated area and I can't afford "attractive" hobbies. Being a first gen immigrant in a very conservative public school system doesn't exactly leave you with a blooming social circle either.

I'm also severely depressed, poor, not exactly charismatic and not easy on the eyes.

I know, I am a real catch :) /s

I'm funny tho, at least so I've been told irl. I was also told that being funny would be enough. But turns out it's more of a deal-closer not the entire deal. If all you have is "funny", you might as well put on the makeup and go be a clown.

I have a steady job as the Universes bad example.

You don't have any women in your friend group?

I do, but they’re all in long term relationships.

I've spoken to Women, and they've offered to bring this up on the next Womens meeting this Thursday. I doubt you've ever spoken to a woman, you probably don't even know the secret handshake. Go back to Twitter.

Those are some broad brush strokes.

If you're autistic and you fail at reading facial expressions, study them, academically. Like, find papers on this, read up on it.

Its more to do with microexpressions and minor details, and the underlying mechanisms of anatomy and how emotions affect the human body.

Think of the difference between a real smile, where the upper cheeks and lower/outer eyes shift upward along with the smile, vs a fake/forced smile that only involves the mouth.

Think about how a major difference between dogs and wolves is that dogs, as our human partners, literally evolved more eyebrow muscles to be able to communicate their emotional state to us more effectively.

Its not that you can't read expressions, its that your model for doing so is wrong, its too simplistic.

You don't need a 400 IQ, you just need patience and humility. Its not a one size fits all perfect rule set that works 100% the same on every different person, but we are all human, with fundamentally the same basic anatomy and physiological wiring.

You are not doing bad things by approaching.

I thing you and I have vastly different experiences with rejection.