Don’t be a dick.

Earlier this week after Beef’s PvP Paladin hit 90, we decided to hit up some battlegrounds. There was a bit of rust to shake off; he primarily plays his Mage in PvE situations and I haven’t PvP’d since Cataclysm myself. We played two randoms, Strand of the Ancients and Isle of Conquest, and decided after to hit up a third to hopefully obtain a win. It was indeed a win, but it came at a cost.

The third battleground was Twin Peaks, a battleground I am not all that fond of to begin with. Despite that, being the only Death Knight in the battleground, I threw up Path of Frost and ran toward the canal entrance of the Horde base. I had no issue running the flag back with a combination of Unholy Presence and Death’s Advance speeding me along. I even was able to dunk the flag when my team tackled the enemy flag carrier – score one for the girl who once had crippling anxiety toward flag running!

When the flags reset, I stuck around momentarily to harass the Horde who decided to come after our flag. Beef decides that we should find our flag carrier and escort them since they were alone. I agree and we set off toward their dot. When I get to the flag carrier, they decided to drop the flag, which startled me. I mash my mouse to recover it, switch presences, and take off running. At this point, the Horde did not have our flag, so I was racing against them to cap. This… made me nervous. When I got to their base, because of said nerves, I swung to the right toward the stairs before noticing my mistake. I am used to running in that direction because the only time I have the flag in TP is when I have to sit and evade the Horde, not when I need to dunk it immediately. To remedy my error, I hit Death’s Advance… but it was a few seconds too late. A Horde Shadow Priest grabbed the flag and took off, too quickly for the Druid who was accompanying me to catch.

This left me as an easy target and a group of about five Horde jump me in the middle of flag room, killing me almost immediately despite my minor reinforcements. This angers the Druid, who rants in Battleground chat about how terrible I am. I expected that to be the end of it; I screwed up, trust me, I know. But the Druid never relented. They spent the next 20 minutes following me around and insulting me. They also continued to make fun of me in Battleground chat, which was embarrassing. I was too ashamed to stick up for myself, I just let them continue ranting. Despite my self confidence being completely shattered, I kept playing to the best of my ability. I even managed to tango with their flag carrier, stopping the Horde from capping right before the clock ran out in our favour. Did any of that matter? Not to the Druid. My anxiety became so great that by the end of the match, I was trembling hard enough that it was difficult to grip my mouse.

Why do we tear each other apart, slicing at the throats of our brothers and sisters in arms with sharpened tongues instead of focusing on our common enemy? No one is perfect; even the best stumble and fall. This culture of hostility does nothing but hurt the people behind their pixelated avatar and makes them want to quit, rather than improve. Think twice before spewing vitriol in a PuG or Battleground, you never know what the real person behind the toon could be going through.