Been a while so maybe I'm misremembering, but I'm pretty sure he does get it. He's been forcing himself to not see it that way, these last few chapters especially
Its not the same situation, but I was 28 and in short we got a batch of interns who were college sophmores-soon-to-be-juniors and from another country.
There was a girl in the group who had a big crush on me. I have no issues with agegaps but to me it was clear that she was just infatuated - other than the fact she was interning where I worked there was no commonality, I think I was just the person she liked the most and that turned into a workplace crush. There was also a bit of language barrier. So, sort of like Konishikawa I just pretended not to notice.
Now there is a gulf of difference between when the younger person is 19 and when they are 34, but I get his perspective that "she just has a temporary crush, she'll change her mind if we actually dated, she won't be happy with dating and older person and will eventually want to date someone her own age once the novelty wears off and reality sets in."
god being a wingman wasnt in my expectation ngl
Abe-sama works in mysterious ways.