i feel this would imply genji lets someone at random come to him and actually value their opinion more than his own, or zenyatta’s, which is...

yeah, i don’t think that would happen.

he could accept concerned comments from friends, but all the known characters who would BE his friends would never pull something like that. hanzo might in certain situations, depending on the kind of characterization and plot you work with, but even he would not have the basis for that, and genji would set him straight anyway about the whole situation

genji thinks for himself, and zenyatta helped him find harmony within his own form and soul again. he is a different man now, he is whole, and zenyatta helped him find this balance within himself

no one else telling him ‘zenyatta does not love you’ would ever ring true to him, when zenyatta helped him love himself again.

t b h genji probably would either take insult or just snort in their faces, because if there is a soul certainly capable of love, that would be zenyatta.

that’s not to say people haven’t tried. i can see it happening, if they think they can exploit him as he was during blackwatch, so people who do not know him now, or people who see past his cyborg exterior and treat him like a human and as such, try to mine his security in himself and in zenyatta.