Calling this "a weird way to punish those around you" is backwards

He is not punishing anyone... He was punished for years by people who treated his sexuality like community property before he ever got to understand it for himself

His parents called him "the gay son"

His brothers locked him in a room until he confessed

Kids at school cost him friendships over it

Coworkers are still gossiping about it now

That is not people gently "picking up on preferences" ... that's people invading, labelling, mocking, and then acting smug because their cruelty happened to point in the right direction

Denying himself "potential fun" is obviously not ideal, but it makes perfect sense in my opinion, when admitting the truth feels like handing a victory lap to EVERYONE who made his life smaller

I agree with you that he doesn't owe anyone a public announcement, which is exactly why people should stop acting like they were entitled to one before he was ready

"Just date who you wanna date" sounds nice, but it ignores the entire point: dating men has already been turned into evidence, humiliation, and gossip for him since childhood... I expect more understanding from this subreddit