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Small nit(?): you probably meant that he need not feel awkward. At least for some people it's hard to stop feeling awkward by conscious choice, and trying to do so is not necessarily useful (a.o., because failure to do so might cause feelings of guilt).
(This makes me wonder how similar social expectations around expressing awkwardness are to those around being emotional: both feel like things people would frown upon in public without any good reason I can see.)
