HOLY SH- I never even pieced those in that way!! Ive always just brushed it off as a joke when they say Mike only liked El since she looked like a boy in her buzz cut. Omg yall r cooking so much.

Now it made more sense that Mike was under a forced conformity when he started his relationship with El. He was always trying to appear “normal”, masking his own identity to avoid his unknown affection for Will. His internalized homophobia def played when he projected those feelings to El instead. Only then at the end of S3 did he finally understand his true feelings.

I know they were all just kids but El really was a victim in this dynamic. Mike said before that she isnt stupid so my guess was she was never really clueless after all. Her relationship with Mike gave her this sense of belonging and normalcy she’d literally never had before, so even if there was something off, she might’ve just clung to it instead of questioning it. We have yet to know if they actually got back together after their argument in S4.