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As somewhat of a grey life man myself, I'd like to explain a few things about Houtarou's attitude which hopefully may be his thoughts.
1) Houtarou acting rudely towards Chitanda. At first, it was just because he didn't want to get into trouble and thinks that it's a waste of time doing so. He also recognizes Chitanda as an element of change and will shake his life, causing ripples in his current stable life. He does not want that, and prefers to stay within his comfort zone.
This behavior is true for anyone although it may manifest in different ways of reaction: Suppose you're chatting with a stranger. No matter how friendly you are on your first few meetings, there will always be a wall between you and the stranger and the strange feeling of uncertainty and rejection. There might be things that you'd like to do now - even something as trivial as doing nothing - than talking to the stranger. Talking from personal experience, strangers - for whatever reason I have no idea about >_> - loves to come up to me for a chat out of nowhere, and while the experience may be pleasant, it is extremely tiring for a gray zone guy like me. Houtarou's choice of reaction happens to be 'be straight to the face that I don't want to get involved' and if that doesn't work, 'work a strategy that would get rid the person I'm facing ASAP'. Sounds crude, but that's exactly anyone would do when they want to be alone.
2) Houtarou's continuous rudeness towards Chitanda. Their friendship had started out that way and Houtarou didn't bother to change his way of talking towards Chitanda because, well... Let's put down another example. I have a friend who greets me 'fk you' every time he sees me online. An extreme example sure, but my friend doesn't actually mean any harm at all and I understand that. Some forms of conversation sounds extremely painful to another person's ears but might just be daily life to the person themselves. It does not necessarily mean a lack of respect. You don't tend to change your way of conversation. It started out that way, it stays that way. It has already become a norm to both Chitanda and Houtarou, so why would they change their way of speech?
Perhaps the only time Houtarou is really rude towards his friends is in Episode 11.5, where he doesn't even bother answering any of his friends and practically "Mm" and "Hmm" for half of the episode. Which was later told off by both Satoshi and Mayaka, and he promptly changes his attitude upon realizing it. At least he learns from his mistakes.
3) About Houtarou's attitude 'change for the worse'. This is rather subjective. Some people may see it as an improvement because he's actually talking and participating in life and even voluntarily helping out his friends (flour for the cooking competition). Some may see it worse, because his verbal outbursts happens to be dismissive, reluctant and annoyed. At least he's being obvious about it. The guy also has basically zero social skills; he's actually better than most gray zone guys since he's just lazy and lousy at acting nice.
Do remember Chitanda herself maybe a pain for some people to handle and rude, since she basically begs for Houtarou's help relentlessly and excessively until he gives up under pressure, just to satisfy her curiosity. And let's admit it: Some of her curiosities are really nonsensical and a waste of time. That line of thought: "Extremely annoying and wasting my energy' would probably go through anyone's head if they were at the receiving end of Chitanda's curiosity fits.
Shyness is also a huge factor when it comes to communicating with each other. Gray zone guys had this mental sickness so bad it's not even funny.
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