Thankyou for saying this !! People are so quick to forget all about Andrew's past and refuse to see how it had actually affected his character. It is too early to say anything, people are so quick to judge
Yes! Readers want a romantic “red flag” guy who’s toxic towards everyone else but the person they like so badly, but in reality are more complex than that and I think this story is more realistic than the copy-paste toxic characters that are so common nowadays.
*in reality people are more complex
I think the whole “red flag-psycho-obsessed-violent-manipulator” thing about Andrew is way too early and exaggerated. Of course it’s fina to speculate tough.
As I see it, Andrew grew up without parental love and attention. When he voiced concerns he was immediately shit down and his feelings were severely undermined. The only praise he ever got was when acting like some kind of trophy to show off to other adults. When the stalker situation happened, it was clear his father was not going to help. He didn’t take it seriously in the beginning and not when it got worse either. He even ridiculed Andrew by saying he should just k*ll the stalker, knowing Andrew would never do that and showing that his feelings about being in danger were only valid if he was actually harmed psychically. Andrew knew it was only going to get worse and it was like he was forced to sit and wait for it to happen. His plan about the fake gun and chemicals was to handle both the stalker and show off to his dad. I don’t think he’s necessarily a violent person, just that his feelings have never been taken seriously - ever when he felt his life was in danger - and his ever only been in extreme situations where words were simply not enough to get the other party to back off.
Andrew had never been in love. Not interested romantically invested in anyone before. At the same time, he’s never been show love (as supposed to attraction) and doesn’t have any experience at receiving love or showing love, how to engage in a relationship based on love basically. Now he’s in love with Luke. As we’ve seen earlier, Rubix cube and his studies, he becomes absorbed in anything he’s set his mind on and it becomes his whole world. Now his whole world, internal and external, is centered around Luke all the time.
He loves Luke and wants to support his passion for acting, at the same time his world centers around Luke more than Luke’s world centers around him. He’s inexperienced at showing love and wants more than he is able to ask for. He wishes Luke could stay with him pretty much all the time, but Luke interpret it as cute/romantic comments. He wants his attention but doesn’t know how to get it, as previously stated he’s only been given attention in situations where he’s hurt. I don’t think he would hurt Luke’s friends to get more time with him or anything violent like that, he wants Luke to be happy too. So now, due to negligence in childhood and inexperience in love, he wants to be in love and to show love. But he can only show it in the way he’s learned, which is obvious not healthy, or ask for it (because he’s never gotten any response). His world is centered around Luke and he wants his attention, but Luke has other things taking up quite a lot of his world, he doesn’t want to lose him but isn’t sure how to maintain a healthy relationship.
Idk how much of this makes sense, but the “I knew he was a red flag / it was an act cuz he was too good to be true”-interpretation of this is too shallow for the depth the story has shown so far.