I really hate dumb plot points like these and the mc for not calling her out for being dumb as fuck
yes she would totally be much more disappointed and sad at how you've become less social than she is about how you are completely avoiding her
I'm actually willing to give this the benefit of the doubt because they are teenagers and they're allowed to be selfish. It makes sense if you consider it not as wanting to protect Moe's feeling, but the female lead wanting to protect her own. There is something very scary about not living up to others expectations (and worse straight up regressing) especially for teens.
Of course benefit of the doubt means if this whole thing doesn't last more than 2 more chapters max and isn't resolved in an idiotic way. Like the female lead needs to confront herself and the fact that she was more scared of failing Moe's expectations than facing an old friend.
so basically every slice of life manga?
*every bad slice of life Manga.
Personally I enjoy slice of life more for chill character focused stories. If I wanted to read contrived forced drama plots I'd watch a K-drama, or reality TV, or Soap Opera (all of which I avoid).
I really hope this arc is resolved well and quickly. But so far this manga has been pretty bad in terms of progressing story period. it started with a clear goal and benchmark to follow along as it's premise. And that benchmark has gone nowhere. We've barely gotten character or plot development. We keep getting things teased our but nothing ever happens. Compare it to Komi which has a very similar premise. We consistently saw her make more friends many of which became recurring characters. The plot moved along nicely and beside that there was (much much slower) character development and relationship development. And the story still continues without forcing drama and giving us little glimpses in their lives and a very VERY different status quo than we started with (in terms of Komi's social life)
Here we're on Chapter 18 and the female lead's only actual female friend is a super suss girl that the MC has history with.... and she's running away from what would be her first genuine not terrible female friend because she doesn't want to feel bad about not being a social butterfly anymore...
That's all to say, don't insult slice of life. This is just a (probably) bad manga.