I would guess not. Some more guesses: If there's an increase in testosterone, I think it's pretty mild and likely to revert by some homeostatic mechanism. My understanding is that while sensitivity to DHT causes male pattern baldness on the scalp, it contributes to masculinizing hair-growth elsewhere (like facial hair. I'm pretty sure DHT is the major driver of male-type body-hair development in puberty.) So a woman taking 5-AR inhibitors might actually find the effect to be feminizing. I haven't looked into it much, but for the same reason it seems plausible that men on 5-AR inhibitors will have less intense beards than they might have otherwise. (But more head hair.)

This seems basically right to me, yup. And, as you imply, I also think the rat-depression kicked in for me around the same time likely for similar reasons (though for me an at-least-equally large thing that roughly-coincided was the unexpected, disappointing and stressful experience of the funding landscape getting less friendly for reasons I don't fully understand.) Also some part of me thinks that the model here is a little too narrow but not sure yet in what way(s).

Unrelated to the actual content of your post, but regarding your "pseudo-depression," I've written a bit about something that sounds damn close to what you describe, which I've been calling "rat depression." Listless but not "sad" is right on the mark.

Fair enough, re: romantic movies showing female preferences*. (Though I don't watch many romance movies and would guess my gestalt impression is therefore more made up of romantic elements in the non-romance movies I do watch...)

*...maybe See below.

Two main thoughts:
1) I think I've lost track of what "male-coded" means and am not sure why it matters. I know that the women I'm closest too see it similarly to me. (Obvious selection effects there, of course.)
2) This aside you're replying to is a pet theory I haven't given much thought to that both men and women are frequently confused about what the main value proposition of romantic relationships is, and I think the main value prop is a unified thing (viewed at the appropriate level of abstraction, like higher than laundry vs car-repair) that both are looking for. So, even if romance movies are aimed at women, most writers will be writing the meme of female-romance, and writers of macho-romance movies (were there such a thing) would be writing the meme of male-romance, and those things may well diverge, and both are misrepresenting the thing that is most good about good relationships. That's the pet theory anyway.

I see it as a promise of intent on an abstract level moreso than a guarantee of any particular capability. Maybe more like, "I've got you, wherever/however I am able." And that may well look like traditional gendered roles of physical protection on one side and emotional support on the other, but doesn't have to.

I have sometimes tried to point at the core thing by phrasing it, not very romantically, as an adoption of and joint optimization of utility functions. That's what I mean, at least, when I make this "I got you" promise. And depending on the situation and on my or my partner/companion/intimate-other's available actions/capabilities, that manifests in various and possibly-individually-distinct ways.

Also, aside, in practice I really think of it as a commitment to doing one's level best at a much messier process, because there's a delicateness to inferring the other's utility function and also trying to infer your own and jointly optimizing both, with some effective weighting arrived at by a partially opaque process that may not be equal, but not too strongly because you're probably somewhat wrong about everything, and often there are no direct conflicts of values but often enough there are and you need to develop some resolution mechanism for that, probably by pressing the "cooperate" button again and popping up to discuss how to resolve best with partner etc etc.

Also, another aside, I would argue that the standard romantic relationships I see portrayed very often seem lacking in the portrayal. I see lots of infatuation, sexual attraction, and symbols of romance (candles and flowers etc,) but only in the rare depictions that include at least strong hints at the stuff you quoted me saying in the OP do I get a little tug at my heart and believe/believe-in the relationship I'm seeing. This goes for film/TV/prose as well as the people around me, now that I think about it.  ...I kind of wonder sometimes if most people (including writers and actors) don't really know what the really good thing consists of, not even intuitively, and only stumble upon it / partial instantiations of it, without full recognition, by chance. 

A tangent: Often when prospecting for friendship and always for companionship, I used to say that people either did or did not have any "Peter Pan" in them. I coined it when thinking back at watching Peter Pan as a kid and how immediately afterward I ran around the house pretending to be Peter and trying to believe myself into flying etc.. When talking about this I'm bringing a lot more than the current topic into it because this is also supposed to capture a "named character" energy, and an unbrokeness in terms of will-to-joy and other things I won't get into, but also (relevantly) a "romantic soul."  And with that last thing I think I was gesturing at this stuff we're talking about here. Joy and desire at the idea of finding a(t least one!) compatible soul to entwine with and make their happiness yours as they make yours theirs.

Not a full response to everything but:

As I mentioned in private correspondence, I think at least the "willingness to be vulnerable" is downstream of a more important thing which is upstream of other important things besides "willingness to be vulnerable." The way I've articulated that node so far is, "A mutual happy promise of, 'I got you' ".  (And I still don't think that's quite all of the thing which you quoted me trying to describe.)

Willingness to be vulnerable is a thing that makes people good (or at least comfortable) at performance, public speaking, and truth or dare, but it's missing the expectation/hope that the other will protect and uplift that vulnerable core.

I'm very glad you're in a better place now! It sounds like there was a lot going on for you and agree that, in circumstances like yours, bupropion is probably not the right starting point.

Note to bounty hunters, since it's come up twice: An "approximately deterministic function of X" is one where, conditional on X, the entropy of F(X) is very small, though possibly nonzero. I.e. you have very nearly pinned down the value that F(X) takes on once you learn X. For conceptual intuition on the graphical representation, X approximately mediating between F(X) and F(X) (two random variables which always take on the same value as each other) means as always that there is approximately no further update on the value of either given the other, (despite them being perfectly informative about the value of the other,) if one already knows the value of X.  See this for more.

Well but also kind of yes? Like agreed with what you said, but also the hypothesis is that there's a certain kind of depression-manifestation which is somewhat atypical and that we've seen bupropion work magic on.

*And that this sounds a lot like that manifestation. So it might be particularly good at giving John in particular (and me, and others) the Wizard spirit back.

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor and this is not medical advice. Do your own research.

In short: I experienced something similar. Garrett and I call it "Rat(ionalist) Depression." It manifested as similar to a loss/lessening of Will To Wizard Power as John uses the term here. Importantly: I wasn't "sad", or pessimistic about the future (AI risk aside,) or most other classical signs of depression; I was considered pretty well emotionally put-together by myself and my friends (throughout, and this has never stopped being true.) But at some point for reasons unclear to me, I became listless. The many projects of a similar flavor to things John points at above, which I used do to in spades, lost their visceral appeal (though they kept their cognitive/aesthetic/non-visceral appeal and so compelled me to force myself now and then to some success but also some discomfort and cognitive dissonance)-- and it happened gradually so that it seemed like a natural development over a year or two.

My girlfriend, who is on Bupropion for regular physician-recognized depression, encouraged me to try it just to see. So I did. And it worked.

And it kicks in very quickly. There was a honeymoon phase during the first ~8 days it takes for all of the long half-lived active metabolites to reach equilibrium concentrations, during which I and others I know have reported feeling mild euphoria along with the other benefits. After that subsides, it's a background thing where mostly you look back on your day/week and realize you just got things done and did more things. And it's been consistently helpful ever since. (4-6 months for me, ~7 years for my girlfriend, years for some family members and somewhat less time so far for others I know personally.)

Oh and my social battery is way larger. I used to get introvert-exhaustion in a way that ~basically doesn't happen anymore. Parties are more often fun than not, now.

Further nice-to-haves: 

• It's not an SSRI, it's an NDRI, so it doesn't do the terrible SSRI things. Side effects may include decreased mental fog, increased libido, decreased appetite, and a renewed will to Wizard Power.
• You'll "feel it" right away (~same day) even though it takes a ~week to settle in to equilibrium concentrations (and, anecdotally from others, possibly up to month to feel it's final form?)
• It's fairly easy to get. Go to your psychiatrist and ask for it (XR, extended release to be taken in the morning) or trade time/convenience for money and go online to a site like Nurx.com and if, upon completing their intake survey, they consider you to have mild depression (not severe or you'll scare them off) they'll start mailing you bupropion once a month!

It doesn't work for literally everyone. If you have bad anxiety, or if you have mania, be warned. But for the large handful of people around me who are now on it, they've reported fast and significant positive effects, including at least one other "Rat Depression" case.

That's most of the pitch.