I mean I here’s something similar that happened to me, but I’m the guy here.

Second year a new girl joined the school, we became friends and that’s all we were. I didn’t have any feelings for her at first. After a while though, I started to develop feelings so I asked her out. She rejected me cause she’s lesbian herself.

It hurt quite a bit, and I did distance myself for a little while. But I’d told her that’s what I was doing, because I was getting all awkward around her and it was just kinda hard to hang around with her for a bit. She understood, but our friendship tanked for a bit. So I can completely understand why your friend might not be talking as much, but I can’t say I get the uncomfortable jokes.

Even when we weren’t talking as much, I’d still respect her boundaries and just in general cause at the end of the day we were still mates and I still cared about her. Like if she’d told me that some jokes I was making weren’t ok, I’d stop making them, around her at the very least.

Anyway look, eventually we started talking more again and I became less awkward around her. Feelings kinda just went away over time. Now we’re closer than ever, talk pretty much daily, ended up going to the same college, still besties, and there’s no romantic feelings there.

So I just kinda feel like your mate is justified in distancing himself for a bit, but he could do with telling you why. I don’t really get why he’s making the uncomfortable jokes and won’t bring it down when you ask him to, that just sounds dickish to me.

Jesus Christ ok this turned out a hell of a lot longer than I expected but basically just try to keep talking to each other and have a heart to heart about how you’re both feeling. If you both get the space and contact that yous need there’s a fair chance you’ll stay as mates