hi @SimGuruIcarus, thanks for replying!
i've seen one of my male Sims, who's meant to flirt with other males and has done so from the start as intended, often gets whims to flirt with his two female friends/housemates. two other male Sims (who happen to be best friends) roll whims to flirt with each other. basically, everyone in that house wants to flirt with everyone else (the whim description states it's "from being near a friendly relationship"), and they have never had any sort of romantic relationship (or interaction, even) with each other--only with their significant others, who are not part of that household, btw.
tbh, i haven't been keeping track of my other played Sims lately, but from time to time i would check their romance panels and find all kinds of stuff like the above. those whose preferences leaned towards males had female love interests, and i've seen the other way around before, too.
here are my save files. it's an older batch, because for some reason onedrive is being unreasonable today. i don't remember how the situation was left off here. so let me know if it's still okay to share these ones--if not, i will try back later.