As a monofannish person, it's always super awkward when a friend is like, "You should watch X, you'll love it!" directly to me

That wrinkle never occured to me, I can see how that could be an issue! As a multifannish person I actually don't mind one-on-one tailored recs of a canon from a friend who knows my specific tastes, as long as they accept that even if I do like the canon I'm unlikely to get super fannish about it. I had some mild awkwardness recently when a friend I made through Homestuck fandom got me into Dangan Ronpa, the canon she moved onto after she stopped liking Homestuck... and then I continued to be much more of a Homestuck fan than a Dangan Ronpa fan.