I love these scenes so much because Sherlock is so in disbelief at the fact of other people taking any interest in him. Everyone normally tells him to “piss off” or calls his intelligence/ deduction skills “little tricks” and just think he’s some sort of psychopath. And he’s just so smol here and he’s so happy at this realization that he’s not this loser weirdo that he’s normally been made to feel he was and that he’s actually this incredible genius, this “gentleman hero.”
Because even though he likes to show off, he only ever thought it interested him.
And the best part is that having a close friend made him realize that, having a friend like John made him realize how special and important he is and it made other people realize it too. Because even though Sherlock is the “most human human being [we’ve] ever known,” he puts off an apathetic, stoic exterior, underneath all the smol and broken that we know he actually really is.