It's good that this happened (plus it's a delicious time in the storyline for the series, oh yes ), because Justin got to 'realize' that Brian had been showing him love all along. People that operate the name commonly straight-passing boys whom will not speak with any individual rather than straight-passing guy, and as a consequence dismiss and/or degrade feminine or androgynous everyone. But again, makes sense that Justin hadn't figured that out yet. Boys typically describe on their own this way to point out that they’re masculine-acting, and are also attempting various other masculine-acting folk. Regardless of if he wanted to or not, Brian was actually offering Justin real love. I personally was fooled by someone doing similar stuff that Ethan does - talking a lot of good game and upping the romance quota, but underneath it all they were full of s t. Going with that theory, it makes sense that Ethan could swoop in and give his BS promises and Justin would've been swept away by them, and Brian would've looked unloving by comparison. And after experiencing trauma, it can be hard to connect to people in your life, even people you were previously getting along just fine with. Both of them (Justin and Brian) are obviously a bit different after that incident. I read an interesting theory (I think from a very olddd thread on this board, perhaps ) where someone thought that Justin's bashing and his PTSD from it influenced his decision to cheat on/leave Brian.

Ethan queer as folk