My otaku housemate -- the type of guy who runs a small business of burning images of anime girls on tree-slices and selling them over deviantART -- has come into an interesting situation recently. He hosts anime-club and D&D shindigs here on a weekly basis, and the people who patronize these gatherings are nice, if also a little Invader-Zim-doom-song for my tastes. While I was heading upstairs one night last year to get some iced tea, I passed by him and a lady friend of his from the club; Gurren Lagann was playing in the dimly-lit room; he was sitting on the couch; she was sitting on the floor between his legs, facing the screen; he was massaging her shoulders and neck; she was making mewling sounds, which I assume meant he was doing a good job? I guess?
Nobody else was in the room, nor had they been for some time; it was a private evening between him and her, which they'd been doing every other week or so for the last few months. They'd been watching anime for a few hours and it was late at night by this time, so I resolved not to make an ass of myself and passed by as stealthily as possible.
Three months later, we're out on a shopping trip and he offhandedly mentions that he's been lonely recently; when I ask him about this woman, he tells me she never considered the two of them to have been in a relationship of any kind -- despite him having given her rides from her house a county over and spending evening after evening alone together with her. This baffled me to the point where I had to confirm we were talking about the same girl, at which point he sheepishly said yes. He clearly thought she was into him, and she broke his heart by not having told him sooner.
Now, granted, I have a limited picture of the situation, but am I wrong in assuming that this girl was stringing him along for affection and intimate contact, whether vindictively or not? He clearly should have openly discussed the relationship topic with her at some point, but is he wrong for having made that mental leap forward?