Our lord and savior Magnus Bane!

to everyone who uses this line as "proof" of byler or mike having "internalized homophobia," let's break down the entire scene this came from and what drove him to say this, not just pulling it out of context.

first, we gotta lay out exactly what they're fighting about in the first place. there are two sides to this argument, and both are valid.

will is upset for two reasons, 1) he is jealous because he is in love with mike and mike is in love with el, but mike doesn't know about this one so it's not relevant right now, and 2) he feels like he's losing all of his friends. people forget that it's not just mike and will in this situation, it's lucas and dustin too, both of which also stopped talking to will as much. we see in episode 2 after mike lies to el that mike and lucas seem to have grown closer to each other than they have to the others, which happened because they both have shifted into similar interests, one of which being their girlfriends. also, in the same episode max tells eleven that mike probably lied so he could go play atari with lucas, so they are now close enough that even she assumes that out of everyone mike would be hanging out with lucas. both them becoming less interested in d&d and more interested in more teenager things like girls and video games and the mall and dustin leaving for a month for science camp and coming back with a girlfriend of his own has made will feel left behind. he gets mad at mike for not talking to dustin since he got back but will hasn't called him either because he assumes he's not there because he's lost interest in them too. he's upset because his friends don't seem to care about the things that are important to him anymore.

mike feels the exact same way. that whole episode, while mike was stressed about possibly losing eleven and how he felt like there was no right way to handle the situation hopper put him in, lucas was equally as concerned and trying to help him while all will wanted to do was go home and play d&d. he didn't care about the girls being mad at them at all. after they broke up with them and mike's having a total meltdown, lucas is the one trying to calm him down while will was just setting up his d&d game and telling them to get over it. mike feels like he lost will's support too. his relationship that he cares more than anything about was falling apart and his best friend didn't care. he feels like will doesn't care about his situation and his feelings about it just because he can't relate to it. will blamed him for everything and then called the girl he's in love with stupid, of course he got defensive. he understood what will was saying but still didn't like how he was taking all those feelings out on him and el. also we don't know for sure that mike was even talking about will being gay or even knew about it, it is equally as possible that he was just pointing out how will doesn't seem to have an interest in girls and romance like he and lucas do. i'm not completely sure that this is true but i heard that they filmed another take where mike said "it's not my fault you don't like girls yet," but they went with the one without the yet to make it sting more for will, so the second is very likely. now was the comment okay? absolutely not, but he recognized immediately after how it sounded and apologized for it.

will's fans always think he can do no wrong and blame this whole argument on mike, but no one was blameless in this situation, nor was anyone entirely unjustified, they were just kids learning how to navigate how their lives and relationships were changing.

i also feel the need to address what happened right after will ran away. mike immediately ran after will while he didn't go right after el. the bylers like to use this as proof too, completely ignoring the fact that these were two totally different situations, for two reasons, 1) mike still didn't know what he did wrong with el and how to handle it from there while he knew how he messed up with will, and 2) el ran off by taking a bus with max straight back to the safety of her home while will ran off on his bike at night in the pouring rain. the second is self-explanatory, because we all remember what happened the last time will biked home from the wheeler's alone at night. the first one matters because he needed time to think about what to say to el and how to explain why he did what he did and they also just needed to have a talk in general, while he knew exactly how will was feeling and why he was so upset because they had already had that talk. also, the will thing was not just mike's problem, he was mad at lucas too. so mike went back inside, told lucas everything, and they both went after him together. also it was relevant to the plot for them to go find will because will had some important information he hadn't been telling them.