Ingratiating yourself with strangers is a good survival technique if you can’t rely on strength in an encounter. A lot of steretypical male and female behaviours can be analysed through a simple lens: can you rely on physical strength to protect you from harm/death? Of course, our societies are not as violent as back in the day, but these survival techniques had the effect of selecting for these traits.
Even now, they affect behaviour. Take sexual behaviour. The usual theory is men spread their seed widely, but women have a bigger risk because they have to bear any child conceived as a result, and so will be more choosy. In an age of contraception, women are having more sexual partners than previous generations (except for the current crop of miserable autists policing wrong think online) but they aren’t on par with men. Why not?
Slut-shaming plays a role, but i’d argue the physical vulnerability of being in private with someone who will be on top of you and can kill you with their bare hands, if they wanted to, might factor into this. Best to get a handle on their personality first. This won’t be a conscious paranoid thought in a woman’s head, but then most sensible survival instincts aren’t.
Thank you, BTW, to every man who uses his strength for good, including offering to throw creeps out of women’s bathrooms. You’re doing it because you’re a good man, but i hope you get an, er, evolutionary benefit from it too.