Make Rainbows, Not War

(I’m at a gaming convention with a few of my friends. We play games as a team, but nothing serious. I’m gay, as are a couple of my teammates, and we are playing a friendly match against another team in a popular war-based shooter. This happens in-game through voice chat. My gamer tag is Rainboom, and I have a picture of me with a rainbow.)

Random opponent: “Hey, Rainboom, are you a [derogatory word for gay]?”

Me: “Do you mean am I gay? Yeah, what of it?”

Random opponent: “What the h*** are you doing playing a game? Go suck a d***!”

Me: “Whatever, mate.”

Random opponent: “I am not your mate, homo! Go die, you piece of s***!”

Opponent’s team mate #1: “Hey Tom, shut the h*** up!”

Random opponent: “Nuh, gays shouldn’t be playing games! They should be burnt alive!”

Opponent’s team mate #2: “Dude, not cool!”

Opponent’s team mate #1: “Grow up man! Just play the game!”

Random opponent: “F*** you lot! Rainboom can go die!”

Opponent’s team mate #2: “Just shut up. I’m gay too. You got a f***ing problem?!”

Random opponent: ”Sick f***s! Go eat s*** and die together!”

Opponent’s team mate #1: “Rainboom, this guy is all yours!”

(Tom’s teammates stopped attacking our team, leaving Tom alone. Our team decimate him, continually killing him. He continues giving me abuse, but he doesn’t get a single kill in. He leaves before the game actually finishes, entirely humiliated. Ten minutes later, in the real world I run into a stranger.)

Stranger: “Hey, are you Rainboom?”

Me: *surprised* “Yeah.”

Stranger: “I want to apologise for my team mate earlier. He’s our friend’s little brother and he was only brought because his brother was sick. He’s been banned from playing with us again though, and we told his parents and brother what he did. I don’t think he’ll doing that again.”

Me: “Aw, thanks. That’s so nice!”

Stranger: “Anyway, I thought I could buy you a energy drink to make up for it?”

(We dated for a few months after that!)