Nah, the friends are alright.
Childhood friends don't always imply closeness.
Cooking lunch for your "friend" when you don't usually do it and you're just going to "hang out" is weird.
Homemade lunch has too much emotional weight into it - in Japanese, it's omoi - this is what they mean by it's like knitting a sweater. If the guy was any other normal sane guy, they would be put off by it.
Of course, the friends probably didn't really know how close the two were, but their advice works in general.