That main reason women "ghost" or "play nice" is fear of reprisal. I'm not gonna be rude to some guy I don't know that well.

Why? Because by age nineteen that got me assaulted and raped in my freshman year. A year later a guy I thought was a good friend also made an attempt.

For every six or seven decent guys out there, there's at least one guy who is willing to hurt or assault us in retaliation for an imagined slight, and the freakiest thing is that we don't know who that guy is. They're usually not complete strangers, statistically, they're acquaintances or close friends. So we women are generally "nice" to guys because it's safer for US. Not every chick has this experience, thank god, but it a lot more common than people think.

I went back to college last year to finish my degree and three different girls in my major confided in me about different stalking or harassment incidents they've experienced recently, in the interest of creating a group that left en masse for the parking garage at night. It was depressing. They saw it as normal, and the need to create a larger group for "safety" as routine procedure. And this is in the US.