A normal person probably doesn't see the double-indirection and ambiguity in this. The first indirection lies in using 'I'm a vi user' as a proxy for 'I don't like Emacs'. The second indirection lies in using 'I don't like Emacs' as a proxy for 'I reject you romantically'.
The ambiguity is even less visible. Some women use an indirect 'No' as a shit test. The man is supposed to ask again. This is phenomenon invisible to normal people because it occurs in a social context of body language and flirting. Normal people find this social context conspicuous. Consequently, normal people are oblivious to the phenomenon of men with poor social skills failing to navigate the treacherous waters around the "ask again no" and the very different "don't ask again no". These waters are a normie's paddling pool.
Remind yourself of the big picture here. We have a highly intelligent man with embarrassing blind-spots around certain social skills. We have intelligent women attempting to communicate with him. They choose a code with two properties. First, it aims at a social skills blind-spot; the message is likely to be misunderstood by the target. Second, it is a trivial code that normies will not even notice breaking. They get to have a sneer and a laugh at the expense of the loser who misunderstands the coded message. The joke lies in the weakness of the code. Everybody except the victim gets the message effortlessly.
So long as 'I'm a vi user' is a private joke, its heartless cruelty is mitigated by its pettiness. But RMS is the victim. To tell the tale as a strike against him lacks self-awareness.