The key word there is minimal. You absolutely have to be with them one way or another. You kiss Josy on your first date, Maya grinds you awake and you make out after the cum-petition, You kiss Bella after showing up for dinner and you have to go on a date with Jill. And even with those minimal interactions the MC still has a crisis of conscience at the end for no real reason.
Just because we as the player don't get a choice in the matter doesn't make it 'forced' from a storytelling point of view. Things beyond our control are a regular part of real life, so it's not surprising they would happen to the MC, too. The question isn't if bad things can happen despite our best efforts, it's whether we have the freedom to choose our response.
That's where BaDIK does sometimes get itself into trouble. First, because our actions are occasionally constrained for the sake of the meter: remaining friends with Maya and Josy if the reject the MC is the most glaring case, but there are others. Second, because we very rarely get to choose the MC's mindset, which means even when we can select an action we're often at the mercy of DPC to tell us why that was. This is the theoretical justification for why visiting Bella in Episode 3 ends with them making out or why the MC was so devastated by the Maya/Josy revelation even when he passed on sex with both of them. It will likely resurface in his future interactions with Zoey, too.
I try to be sympathetic because it's a tricky problem. If the game isn't going to be a complete sandbox the first issue is unavoidable; likewise if the MC isn't going to be a completely milquetoast clean slate the second will have to happen at least a bit. It really comes down to frequency and degree, which are always going to be very subjective.
In general I think BaDIK does a pretty decent job of it, but it tends to run into trouble when DPC wants to go big. I think that's primarily because DPC tends to sweep the 'how the MC feels about X' aspect of choices under the rug for most of the game: he'll allude to the MC's mindset a time or two, but in general the MC just does what we select and we intuitively assume he's doing it for the same reason we are.
But then when DPC needs to crank things up to 11, he'll pull rank and assert that the MC actually felt a certain way the whole time. It's extra jarring because we've become so used to thinking we were molding the MC, not just breaking ties in his own mind. The fact that DPC insists the Affinity scale is a coherent description of the MC doesn't help, nor does DPC's penchant for giving us lots of small, highly reactive choices.
I'd like to think DPC has learned either to stop trying to force maximum drama or to stop handing out more choices than he can cope with, but nothing about the end of Season 2 or the Interlude supports that conclusion.
Jill's first tennis date is unavoidable. And your right it wouldn't make sense at all, that's why those scenes are forced.
Honestly, I thought Jill's tennis date was one of the best examples of DPC getting it right.
The date is plot crucial so the MC *will* ask her out, but the scene is structured so that we could plausibly do so both out of interest in Jill or out to shut Tybalt up. It's up to us to decide, and the game will then allow us to reinforce the choice during the date. If we take the opportunity kiss and later make out with Jill, the game will act as if the MC is smitten with her; reasonable enough. If we keep it strictly platonic, Jill will decide the MC just isn't into her and the whole thing never gets off the ground; even the interminable Jill blackmail subplot is handled as a minor nuisance in this route.
It all worked quite well until... at least until the @$%@*#$ crossroads had the MC angsting over all the girls giving Jill a hug.
