I hadn't realized that the fear of harming women could actually be that paralyzing in real life that it actually scares men away from getting dates at all.

To make matters worse, there is also the case of appearing to harm women. Even a false accusation of rape is a terrifying prospect for any man who isn't like the specified male friends you mentioned.

For some social environments, the cost of a false positive (you determine 'yes' when actually 'no') is way higher than the cost of false negatives. For many other situations, the cost is potentially lower. I don't see it here, but the failure mode in almost all social discussions I've had the misfortune of having on this topic has been to try and generalise a single behaviour for women or men over both situations.