You can do like I do. Make an IOI thread and find out from other posters if a woman is interested.
But you are right, more often than not, she is not and is likely being nice.
Yeah, you've seen my cringe threads about getting rejected and amogged at work and the awkardness afterwards?
When do you think this happened?
The only posts I recall seeing from you have either been about your ex-wife or the escort from a decade ago. I haven't seen your posts about work. I totally understand there would be awkwardness if turned down at work though.
There's a saying "Don't sh1t where you eat" (in other words, don't look for sex/dates at work). Next door neighbor is a similar scenario (with how often you have to run into each other). I can't afford the awkwardness of getting turned down by my next door neighbor.
As for your question of when I think it's happened (where a woman was into me, yet I squandered the opportunity because I thought she was "only being nice"), it's tough to say. There have been female coworkers, neighbors, as well as customers (when I used to work at stores) where this could have been the case. Since I never made a move, there's no real way to know.
Also, there have been cases where (when out to eat), my mom has been adamant a waitress was into me, even though I had no idea (Then again, my mom insisted the last woman I got free sex from
wasn't into me. So I take my mom's opinion with a grain of salt)