I assure you that no pretence is necessary if I wish to appear intelligent, although I don't think pieces of paper or abstract numbers prove anything, I do have them. I try to avoid condescending to others as a rule, but today I am really very tired of people being rude, sexist, privileged, blinkered, and/or ignorant on the internet, and my patience had run dry. I'm not proud of it, but I'm also not particularly sorry.

It is a valid point about what kinds of norms we want to model for ourselves, and what kind of narratives we want to form the internal schema of viewers - especially male viewers. Stalking hurts people, badly. So understanding the line between stalker and persistent is important.

Someone saying that's me "read[ing] into harmless material too much, lol" is probably someone who has either firmly internalised those socio-cultural norms and cannot be argued with, or someone who is too young or emotionally immature to understand why this is important, or someone who does not yet do a (meta)-analysis of the world or pop culture material.

None of which would invalidate my point. And I worry that people like that exist. People who think it's funny and harmless, and who don't see why it's a problem if stories teach little boys and grown men what "gets the girl" - ways which could be incredibly harmful for everyone involved when those boys repeat those patterns in real life. So I really hope it IS a kid who doesn't understand why it's important, not a grown wo/man. But if it was a grown wo/man, I really hope they realise that someone mistaking them for a child might be an indication that they could rethink some things.