I think some here don't understand how pervasive and insidious mental conditioning can be.
So I'll use myself as an example: I was "in love" with this girl, and "together" with her in 7th, and part of 8th grade (whatever that means - we spoke a lot on the phone, but almost nothing in school, and it was never physical).
Then she broke up with me, and (and this is the thing!) told me that she still liked me, but we were too young, so we should see how things were in the future.
I was crushed, but ... "hopeful" (?).
So for something like 5 years, I simply put all those kinds of feelings ... let's call it "on hold". I didn't even notice if a girl showed interest in me. Sure, I could see that a girl was beautiful, sexy, cute, etc., but since none of them told me straight up that they were actively interested in me, none of those things mattered to me.
Then I was invited to a party celebrating the ending of high school organised by this girl and some of her closer friends.
I went to it. And she didn't even try to really talk to me. She did talk to this other guy I'd seen around her before, though. (Yeah, he clearly was into her, and had been for years.) At that point, I finally decided that "Nah, this has gone on for long enough."
And it was like a switch was thrown in me. I probably started behaving differently towards others, showing more interest towards girls (no, I did not turn into some manipulative Casanova. I've always been shy. But just being nicer, and showing interest in other people would make quite a change.). It actually took about 2 weeks until I got together with a very nice girl. Sure, it didn't last more than half a year, but apparently, I'd simply not allowed myself to see if any girls were into me at all.
So what I'm saying is - ML isn't necessarily dense, but his experiences may have led him to filter his surroundings in a bad way.
Also, there's different kinds of intelligence. I was quite capable in school, but not really good at social interaction.