“What do you mean you can’t join us for your grandmother's birthday dinner?” My mother's piercing green eyes gave me goosbumps as I tried to gather the courage to speak up. “It’s a really important match that would allow us to qualify for the LAN Lions Championship, I can’t let my team down. I know you think I'm wasting my time on that game, but this is like, a really big deal.”

I braced myself for my mom to raise her voice and remind me to get out into the real world, but to my surprise, she didn't. She simply let out a small sigh and crossed her arms. “I guess it might get you out of the house eventually." She rolled her eyes. "You know what Jason, play your silly game. But you will have to deal with the consequences of letting your grandmother down, so you better win to make it worth it.”

“Yes mom, I will make sure of it.” I took my plate and that of mom’s to get the dishes out of the way as quickly as possible. When I arrived in the kitchen I could my mother's voice yelling out from the other room.

“I will be off to the gym! don’t slack on your homework while I am away.”

While I finished the dishes, I spotted her car driving off the lot, and a wave of relaxation washed over my body. Don’t get me wrong, I love my mother. But she can be a bit much sometimes. Now that she's gone I can finally get back to my PC to get some more pub games in before the end of the night.

I get it, homework and school are super important. That is what mom says at least, but in reality I don’t care for it at all. I just do exactly what's necessary to get by, and what keeps my mom happy. Pretty much every bit of freetime I got, I will be spending on the greatest game ever made, Dota 2. You might disagree, but you would just be wrong. There is no other game where even after 10.000 hours played, you are still learning something new every single day. And if you are standing in a stadium filled with other people, all shouting and clapping for the best teams in the world, you know you are not alone. Being so incredibly dedicated to a single game instantly shapes a bond with others that are just as dedicated. This is why I often feel that my Dota family is more important than my real family.

As I wake up my computer and boot up Dota 2 to get the night started, a small chat window pops up at the bottom of my screen.

RAYRAY: Want a +1?
NOBLIN: Sure
RAYRAY: Cool, i'm on disc in a sec

Rayray or actually Rachel as that is her real name has quickly become one of my best friends. Playing in the same competitive dota 2 team together tends to do that. I only first met her a few months ago when they were looking for a new offlane player in their team and she put up a recruitment post on reddit. However, we have only ever talked on voice calls. I have seen some pictures of her on twitter, but apart from that I have never actually seen her. Nonetheless we have become good friends over time. Nowadays we talk more and more about general life stuff and other hobbies like movies instead of just about the game. I was just kind of weirded out about her message, since she normally has field hockey training on Tuesday nights

So it seems like I will have some unexpected companionship on my Tuesday night solo que adventures today. As I quickly alt-tab to find my discord window, I get myself into our team's server where “Rayray” should be hanging out right now. While I scrape my throat a little to prepare my voice, I join the voice channel.

“Hey Em, are you ready to win some MMR tonight?” a female voice says over my headphones.

I respond with a little higher of pitch than I normally do, and with a bit more resonance (it’s crazy what some youtube videos can teach you to do). “That was always the plan, just didn’t expect you to be online tonight. You are not at Hockey training with the rest of the girls tonight?”

While it has felt weirdly natural over the past month, it's also definitely still awkward in a way. When I saw the post from Rachel about them looking for another offlaner, I didn’t quite read the whole thing. Obviously it was quite surprising when I did my first tryout with them and it turned out all my teammates were girls, but I didn't think too much of it. And neither did they because at the time I had a throat infection, so I wasn’t able to use my voice. With my gender neutral nickname, they just assumed I was a girl as well. Especially since the part I forgot to read stated that this was an all girls team, looking to also compete in all girls tournaments. Why would anybody that isn’t a girl apply for the team, right?

However, I felt so good playing with the team, that it felt really bad blowing it all up once I figured this out. So by the time I got my voice back and fully joined the team, I started pretending to be a girl named Emily. While I almost exposed myself at multiple occasions at this point, none of them knew about Jason so far. Living almost two hours away from them made it so that I never actually had to see them, so as long as I kept up my voice work, things should work out fine.

“No, I injured my ankle yesterday at PE, so I'm taking a bit of rest this week. Hope I can at least put on some minutes during this weekend’s match though” Rachel said. As we started que into ranked matchmaking she eventually piped up again. “Oh btw, I completely forgot to tell you. I figured out a great way to get ready for the LAN Lionesses Championship Qualifiers next month!”.

My eyebrows arched as I inquired further, “Well, what is it?”

“I managed to arrange an actual bootcamp weekend for us at the local LAN center in Battingham!” she shouted over the microphone.

Hearing those words caused those same goosebumps from earlier to crawl down my back again. A loud sound played over my headphones and a giant green accept button showed up in the middle of the screen. “You mean like, a bootcamp in person, together with the team?” I asked with light shudder in my voice, simultaneously pressing the accept button.

“Of course you silly, It’s going to be so much fun finally all meeting in person”