Gotta come here to defend my all-time favorite key route, heh
No, nobody can really. That isn’t Tomoya. The real Tomoya would do the alternate choice: make Kyou trip while chasing her, and have her rip up the piece of paper she wanted to show him.
But hey, guess who it was that made the choice to go ahead and try out dating Ryou. Because that sure wasn’t Tomoya who pressed that button
I’ll actually raise you another argument, and say that the very first scene of CLANNAD, with Tomoya pushing Nagisa to go up the hill was simply too out-of-character for him. Of course, I believe there is a reason for that, as there is a reason for Tomoya even thinking to try things out with Ryou. But that delves into heavy post after story CLANNAD meta knowledge.
Yes they were quite cringe-worthy. But, unlike most other cringe-worthy scenes in anime, you could feel the same cringe that Tomoya was feeling. You could feel the immense guilt that he felt as he was doing things that he knew was absolutely wrong. The cringe was shared between the character and the reader, and I think writing that is capable of doing this is nothing short of amazing.
You might be a bit mistaken with this. He is venting his stress by making romantic jokes towards Ryou. Stuff like joking that they should kiss or they should go to a hotel. He vents his stress in much of the same way during the common route. This is classic dick-ish tomoya right there.
The one who is actually indulging him in his jokes is Ryou herself, because of her desperation to keep Tomoya as her own. This leads to a point where Tomoya feels way too guilty because of these jokes, and we as readers share this guilt. At least, I shared this guilt.
That was a very sad thing and, I think, one of the highlights of the route. Of course nobody would believe her, but it was a move driven out of desperation; desperation to not hurt her sister and to not jeopardize her relationship with Tomoya. She thought that Sunohara was just dumb enough to go with the flow. Too bad Sunohara is too much of a bro
She was a victim here. Very much so. A victim of circumstance. A victim of being too involved with people too scared to accept their own feelings (like Kyou). And more importantly, a victim of her own desperation to cling on to something to make her feel better about herself.
Have you every tried talking about your own feelings? Because, fuck me, that shit’s tough. Especially when you’re an insecure wreck like Tomoya is, wow.