> How much time do these friends spend in social situations with women where the goal isn't to get laid/find a girlfriend?

Sometimes it's all available time. Which could be really small or none at all.

Behavior could be significantly affected by proximity with women, when you're in certain age and experience. It's described in the literature, for here it could be said a social - social - situation with women where the goal isn't to get laid/find a girlfriend - and where such goal doesn't quickly appear and supersedes whatever other goals there were - could be rare to find.

It shouldn’t be rare though (assuming US cultural norms). If it is, that might be a big part of the root problem.

What norms have to do with this? Imagine that whenever a man is in proximity of women it's like a loud signal which doesn't go away, and he needs to concentrate on anything else to avoid following the noise. It's irrelevant which cultural norms are around.

Cultural norm meaning it is normal to be in social contexts with mixed groups of genders without it being primarily sexual, and generally expected of people. There are countries and cultures where this is not true, which makes mixed gender interactions different.

> Imagine that whenever a man is in proximity of women it's like a loud signal which doesn't go away,

This is not normal, and may point to deeper problems.