Page 3 of Didn't See That Coming

“You’re a girl? And you’re not playing a healer? Fuck you! Switch to a healer!”

“Ignore them. I really don’t mind girls playing this game. I think it’s hot when girls are into guns. How old are you?”

And sure, I can block people, which I do, liberally, but foronce in my life, I wanted to be treated as just a team member. As a human. I just wanted to play the freaking game without having to click the Block or Mute buttons.

I stopped speaking into my microphone, communicating with my team via chat messages alone. But that didn’t stop my screen name from giving me away. Each time I was harassed, I reported the player to the moderators, who promised that they would look into the matter. But each week, when I checked the status of the players who had harassed me, I saw that they were still active. Nothing had happened to them. They’d likely been reprimanded and then left alone. And I noticed that the algorithm was starting to group me with the lower-ranked players. I was winning the majority of my games, so I knew I shouldn’t be ranked with the bronze-tier players, and yet here I was, moving down the tiers with each complaint I made. Maybe the company thought it was protecting me by tweaking my profile so I was less likely to encounter the people I reported, but at the end of the day, the result was still the same: I was being punished for reporting the harassment.

For a while, I considered quitting the game. There was so much resentment festering inside me, and I was also exhausted. Every time I logged on, my stomach clenched painfully, my shoulders rose to my ears, and my neck muscles went completely rigid. I wasn’t enjoying it anymore.

Then one night it hit me: I could be whoever the hell I wanted to be. Goodbye Doom&Bloom, hello Dudebro10.

When I logged on for the first time as Dudebro10, my shoulders were rigid, my hand clutching my mouse as usual.I kept expecting someone to shout “IMPOSTER” at me. And then mods would swoop in like Valkyries and, I don’t know, hit me with the ban hammer. But nothing like that happened. People just went “Hey” or “ ’sup?” before launching into a discussion on strategy. Nobody asked me to play a healer. I chose my character, a warrior tank, and nobody told me that girls can’t play tanks.

Nobody said, “Why’re we following a chick around?” Nobody asked why I was going west instead of east. Everybody just followed my cue. It was only when the round ended that I realized my cheeks were wet. I’d been crying as I played, and it was as though the tears were part of a thawing. My shoulders were relaxed, my neck muscles no longer hurt, and my jawwasn’t clenched as per usual. I was…enjoying myself.

Overnight, I went from fielding dozens of shitty messages every day to invisible. Just another dude.

That was a year ago. Over time, I joined a guild, and being part of a team broughtWarfront Heroesto a whole new level of enjoyment. After playing a few rounds, the team and I would hang around and chat. I told them that I couldn’t do voice chat because my parents would kill me if they knew how late I was staying up, and they accepted it, no questions asked. They probably thought I was a twelve-year-old kid instead ofseventeen.

The later it got, the more players logged off, and soon, it was just me and one other teammate left online: Sourdawg. Our chat flowed so seamlessly that I didn’t realize it was just the two of us left. And when I did, I didn’t mind. Sourdawgwas great to talk to. We chatted for ages about the game—our stats and how to improve them, the various weapons we preferred, and so on. When I logged on the next day and saw the green light next to his name, a glow of happiness warmed my chest. It brightened when my computerbooped with a message from him. That night, we played and chatted for four hours straight. I could barely stay awake in school the next day, but it was totally worth it. And we’ve been chatting every day ever since.

I never planned to make a real friend onWarfront Heroes.I just wanted to play in peace. I never meant to deceive—I mean, of course I knew I was deceiving, but I thought it would just be me logging on, playing a few rounds peacefully, without being harassed, and then logging off for the night. No harm done. I never expected to befriend someone like Sourdawg, and even after we started chatting with each other, I never expected to be so close to him. We’re, like, properly friends now, which is freaking weird, and we share stuff about each other outside ofWarfront Heroes.Well, I share under the guise of Dudebro10, which sucks, because it feels really slimy doing that. Here’s what I know about Sourdawg:

He’s 17 and he lives in Singapore.

He has some kind of obsession with sourdough, hence his screen name.

His dream is to get into the CIA—the Culinary Institute of America, that is, not the other CIA.

He’s maybe the only decent guy onWH.One time, we were grouped with a player whose screen namewas, and I kid you not, SexyLexxi. I winced when I saw it. Sure enough, the other guys started heckling her as soon as the chat opened, but Sourdawg said, “STFU, guys,” and they did. Why couldn’t the algorithm have teamed me up with him when I was Doom&Bloom, damn it?

He’s got seven different kinds of sourdough starters. Have I mentioned his obsession with sourdough?

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