A disappointing experience with a veteran player as a newer Sky kid
I joined Sky about 3 months ago, and one of the things I heard quite often was how kind and helpful veteran players are toward newer players. Honestly, I've had some really nice experiences with the community, so I came to believe that too.
Recently, I met a veteran player in Golden Wasteland and we exchanged friend codes. We started talking and eventually got onto the topic of where we were from. I mentioned that I'm European and have mixed ethnicity that my mother is French and my father is Italian.
She started calling me “hybrid.”
I respectfully told her that I found that term offensive and that I would prefer people to say “mixed ethnicity.” I wasn't trying to start an argument; I simply explained that, especially as someone who is 18, being referred to that way made me uncomfortable. She disagreed and continued to justify using the term.
At that point, my other friends arrived, so I stopped the conversation rather than turning it into an argument. Some time later, I noticed that she had removed me as a friend.
What bothered me most wasn't simply the word itself. People can have different understandings of words, but when someone tells you that a particular term makes them uncomfortable, I feel like the respectful thing to do is simply not use it for them.
I'm not posting this to say that veteran players are bad... I've met some of lovely ones. But this experience did make me question the image I'd formed of veteran players being universally kind and respectful toward newer players.
Has anyone else had an experience like this, where a seemingly friendly interaction in Sky suddenly went in an uncomfortable direction?
TL;DR: I met a veteran player who called me “hybrid” after learning I have mixed ethnicity(French and Italian). I respectfully told her the term made me uncomfortable, but she continued defending it, and later removed me as a friend. It left me wondering how others would have handled the situation.