Strahd himself is asking this? I’m star-struck!

Hm, but to try to answer this… I used to play a lot of EverQuest back in the day, and at one point upgraded to EverQuest 2. I was pretty open when talking to people online, even though I was a little kid, just chatting up random players while leveling and regularly inviting random people to groups just to have someone to talk to.

At one point I met some other player who was playing a rat man (Ratonga?) and he and I played for a while while chatting randomly about life or whatever. At some point I must’ve expressed confusion about how I felt about a male friend of mine, and this player very calmly and patiently explained same-sex attraction to me. I’d gone to a private Catholic grade school and never had much information about queer anything to this point, so it was a bit of a shock to me.

Thankfully, this player was so patient and kind with me, talking about their own identity as an adult gay man, how happy they were, what their life is like, and really helping me to understand that it’s normal, it’s healthy, and in many ways it’s fun.

I think back on that encounter occasionally and I think about how genuinely impactful and helpful it was for me. We didn’t talk for very long, but it left such a lasting impact on how I view myself. Without it, I may have lived with a lot of shame and confusion for a lot longer.

Sometimes I wonder where he is, and if he knows how much of an impact he had.

I had a few other interactions on MMOs that were similar, after this encounter, trying to find other people like me who I could look up to. Surprisingly, many people were very friendly to me and willing to talk about their lives and explain things. It was my very first interaction with the community, and it was all virtual through games. So many people helped me out when I was experiencing a lot of confusion. I wish I’d had that help in real life, but at least I did find it somewhere.