I've been wanting to play TF2 cause it seems fun and like why the fuck not ig, but:
1. There are some... weird people on there.
Listen- if you're ever looking for a game where you can meet a lot of different kinds of people, TF2 is the game to go with. You can have a trans girl, a n*zi, a communist, a gay man, an incel, and a divorced 30-something year old all in the same group. No, seriously. There are so many different kinds of people on that game. Any group you enter is bound to have just... a colorful cast of characters. And that's all fine, but my main concern is just that there really are a lot of n*zis. Like a concerning amount of n*zis. I mean they're pretty easy to ignore and usually people play with them as-normal since they don't exactly stop in the middle of the game to tell you about how H*tler is so great and was right all along, but I just... it's really not it. I'm scared to play it cause idk what to do if I see a n*zi.
2. My crippling anxiety
TF2 is a game I have never ever ever played before. Actually, I've only ever played FPS games on my phone before. Never on my PC. So naturally I am not gonna be the best at it, and if there's one thing abt me, it's that I'd cry if I so much as messed up slightly. Not cry, I'd break down, I would hire an assassin to come kill me, I would throw myself off every cliff to ever exist one by one. I HATE messing up in front of others. It puts such a paralyzing fear in me that I can't even exist normally. So I'm TERRIFIED of playing TF2 and being so bad at it. I'm TERRIFIED of messing up in front of these random strangers. I can't bring myself to get over that fear. Messing up in front of someone else is a fate WORSE THAN DEATH. But I always feel better if someone I know is with me, cause then at least I'm not screwing up all by myself, BUT IDK ANYONE TO PLAY WITH ME I ALSO DON'T KNOW IF LIKE THERE'S ANY CUSTOMS BETWEEN PLAYERS DURING GAMEPLAY LIKE HOW PEOPLE IN MM2 DON'T LIKE JUMP SPAMMING AHHHHHHHHHHH
3. The players are mostly male
If there's ever a woman in a TF2 lobby istg they act like they've never seen a woman before in their lives. Depending on who you're playing with- some of them will start cursing at you, some of them will start calling you a bot if you're in any way good at the game, some of them will ask inappropriate questions, some of them will try to votekick you. Point is, they don't exactly treat women well on there. It's something that's bound to get uncomfortable and annoying. Being rude to them will only get you kicked and so you have to grit and bear it and just try to ignore them or roll your eyes and move on from any stupid questions. Like you really have no choice but to essentially let yourself be harassed. I want to play and all but the issue of male dominated gaming spaces where the men act like shitheads is just a huge turn off.
so, in conclusion, I will either suck it up and play the damn game, or... die.
Thank you for coming to my TedTalk.