This sounds like the kind of flirting I'd expect after seeing '80s and '90s teen angst movies. In retrospect screenwriters just don't understand how humans interact, or rather they just don't care and go for madcap antics instead.

I'm way neurodivergent, and was completely unaware of human interaction, so I was looking at Pretty in Pink and St. Elmo's Fire (etc. etc.) trying to decipher how all that works.

I became sexually active at 26 after folks from the kink community noticed my nerdy vibe, and they schooled me in some basic human interaction. (Note that I matrix-dodged a barrage of incel-to-fascist pipeline bullets thanks to some amazing strokes of fortune.)

After the fact, in recollection, I realized then that a lot of women in my young adult life were signalling me and I never knew.

I also realized my aunt was totally hitting on me when I was sixteen. That's all sorts of awkward to reconcile.