I don’t even ship Wednesday and Tyler like that, and of course y'all can focus on shipping Wednesday with whomever, but saying that she gave Tyler no signals at all before that scene in episode 4 and that it’s completely out of left field…isn’t all that true.

I know we’re shown things mostly from Wednesday’s point of view and she frequently expresses her desire for solitude and not companionship, but let’s also remember that 1) she’s very obviously unreliable when it comes to her own feelings, so that should be taken with a grain of salt particularly because she disproves it later and 2) she says this to Enid multiple times as well (which I’ve seen a lot of wenclair shippers conveniently ignore or excuse), despite doing things that suggest the opposite. It’s a pattern for Wednesday.

And yeah, “signals” don’t inherently mean anything because they depend on context, but nobody communicates objectively. Tyler, like everyone else, draws his conclusions from his point of view. After watching the season once alone and then again with my little sister I’d say that there are at least THREE distinct moments up till then where it would’ve been reasonable for Tyler to assume Wednesday’s interest in him specifically.

The first and second are actually in the first episode, regarding the video call and then the festival. From Tyler’s point of view, Wednesday is a girl he just met who does not own a phone and so relies on him to get her to the train station because he has knowledge about the town and also a ride out of it. At this point he’s just some random guy. So when Wednesday ends up leaving in the middle of his shift, it would’ve made sense to assume she’d get help elsewhere and that he wouldn’t run into her again any time soon. But then Wednesday sends Thing all the way to his house with her name and a phone number written on his palm just so she could speak to him. That’s a lot of effort from someone he just met, even if she would say she’s only using him to her own ends. That eventually leads to him giving her the sheriff’s file on Gomez, upon which she acknowledges that she “isn’t used to people engaging with her” and that he’s doing something others don’t do with her. She explicitly singles him out and regards him in a way that’s different from others. I’m sure both of these things would seem significant to Tyler.

The third is on Outreach Day at the coffee shop where Wednesday asks Tyler about the original Pilgrim meeting house. This might seem insignificant because it looks like Wednesday’s just using him for information here, but realistically, going to the Weathervane was completely unnecessary. Sure, the woman leading her group didn’t know where it was, but Wednesday was out in the middle of Jericho during an event where townies were out and about everywhere. She could have asked anyone else - possibly even other Nevermore students since they’ve been there longer than her - and likely would’ve gotten the same information. She could’ve even asked Xavier when she got to the shop! It’s unlikely that Tyler, a teenage Jericho native, would have special information that other townies wouldn’t, but still she sought him out specifically and even said as much when Xavier asked. From Tyler’s point of view, why wouldn’t that signify interest?

This last one is more subtle so I’d call it an honorable mention but it’s actually right before Tyler accuses her of giving mixed signals, just after Wednesday talks with the sheriff at the station. When she sees Tyler, she immediately cautions him to avoid his father. She might just be frustrated with the sheriff, but that doesn’t really have anything to do with Tyler directly. However, she does know that the Galpins don’t have the greatest relationship (particularly since Tyler was seen arguing with him in public at the festival, he has no problem stealing the file on Gomez, obviously distrusts his father enough to stalk him in the woods, and also sees Kinbott on a regular basis), so letting him know that the sheriff is in “frustrating form” is oddly considerate, especially given that Wednesday isn’t known for being so and he knows that. In fact, the only other people to whom we see Wednesday show that kind of unprompted, unconscious consideration by that point are Enid and Eugene. It’s not something that happens often, so it’s significant.

I wouldn’t call these examples romantic per se, and I’m not really defending Tyler in a general sense given what we learn about him, but it’s not unreasonable at that point for a guy with a (probable) crush on a girl he’s spent some time with to assume that she might return his feelings given the above. In fact, Wednesday doesn’t even refute his assumption about her feelings in that conversation like she normally would with Kinbott or Weems. She deflects (like she does with Enid and sometimes Thing) and says she needs to prioritize instead.

It isn’t “random” or “bad writing” just because y'all don’t like the character or the ship. The groundwork was there since the first episode.