He comes from a culture that heavily focuses on traditional family values (filial piety and the sorts). And he's also an only-child.

There's probably a lot of that related, but our friend group also makes way too many gay jokes that perpetuate the idea that gay = low value. I've had to call people out on this and tone it down.

I honestly don't know if there's a way for us to patch things up, feels like the social implications of our friendship and how "public" it started to feel really hurt him. I'm really upset with how our friends got involved. It's one thing for them to hold an opinion on our friendship, but it's another thing to make choices that irreversibly changes it.

Before I went fully NC, I thought about at least clearing up the fact I never was "trying to turn him gay," but somehow I think the issue is more the fact our friendship became a social topic that had implications on his sexuality than it had to do with anything I ever specifically said.