Once last year I got randomly suspended/temporarily banned after a game of League of Legends and told my internet friend, who also plays it but has done so for much longer than me, which is the reason why I’d come to him a lot to discuss what I’d find happening in my games and whatnot, since I’d started to play in late 2021 but got into ranked much, much later.

The ban itself was really random as I was convinced I hadn’t done or said anything at the time that was against the code of conduct, and fortunately enough I got my account back after raising a ticket to Riot, who claimed that the ban wasn’t placed correctly. Just before that though, when I told him about the ban itself, he demanded to know what I’d usually type in the chat. I eventually told him that I say stuff like “noob, troll, useless, disgusting” to which he responded that words like those alone warranted a ban. I was perplexed at him claiming that because I highly disagreed, but it’s also true that I had been chat banned a few times before (deservedly or not, as I’ve never insulted people that harshly, but have also said things that I definitely shouldn’t have), and he was aware of it, which I suppose helped back up his conviction that I was really a mean person.

He even asked me if I’d be okay if I were playing a team sport and called others the same way, and I thought that obviously I wouldn’t, because League and irl sports aren’t really comparable with each other when I’m just playing as an amateur with people I’ll never see again, so that surprised me. Either way, I told him that I didn’t think that me getting angry at strangers on the internet defined my whole character, to which he responded that he had a lot to say but preferred not to talk.

For context, the whole reason why I was so willing to criticize my teammates’ performance to their face (and bring it up to him too) was because I believed I didn’t deserve to be in the same rank as them at the time. Granted I’m no expert and not x100 better than them, as a low elo support main who plays solo, climbing is kind of tough (which was especially true before the updates from this year).

Anyway, after that, I announced to him that I got my account back, and he still reminded me about how he hoped I won’t spread negative energy as a player.

Just a day later I ask him if he knows about a certain build on a certain champion, but in the midst of it I casually rant about the enemies outplaying my team, as I’m used to doing without even thinking, and I go on to tell him that I thought the build wasn’t appropriate with our team composition. He asked me why I thought the build by itself wasn’t viable, but I couldn’t respond as I didn’t know the champion that well, so he asked me to open my mind more and not judge from one game.

After all of that, he pointed out that I blamed my teammate before knowing the pros and cons of the build, said that I wasn’t at the level to think about team compositions and should instead focus on my plays, and even suggested I talk to people with a similar elo as me since “what he’d say didn’t make sense to me and seemed to affect me negatively”. I didn’t exactly get that sentence but it’s true we’re at different skill levels and don’t understand the game in the same exact manner. I suppose that at the end of the day I didn’t perform as well as my amount of complaining might’ve suggested.

At some point he mentioned that he didn’t have a high elo friend while he was learning the game, but that he used to know someone that was the same elo as him, who in turn also had a friend that was better than him, and said that guy #1 suddenly got really toxic and he believed it was because guy #2 “spoonfed him excess information he couldn’t handle”. He said he stopped talking to guy #1 because he’d just talk about League and how he hated the other players, told me he’d make fun of people’s looks irl, and finally claimed that I was just like him, because I rant about my games. Personally, I was appalled he inferred all of that.

He pleaded me to stop talking about my games and I agreed I wouldn’t any longer. I can understand his frustration to some extent because he’d already asked that once before, but I guess I just toned it down instead of completely removing it as a topic of conversation, subconsciously bringing it up all while not remembering his past request. But he also asked me it again and told me the same story as though he’d never said it before, so he may have had forgotten about it too.

Thus I tried explaining myself to him and demanded that he no longer makes comparisons of me to the people in his past or present, which he “refuted” and told me that he didn’t think I was the same person as guy #1, just that I had the same aspect he didn’t like. Overall, his whole final response didn’t seem charged with all the disappointment he made sure to convey just before, so I took a sigh of relief and assumed we were good.

The day after, with that assumption in mind, I hit him up asking him a simple question that was completely unrelated to League, but he didn’t answer. I assumed he was still mad at me, and just brushed it off as always not to start anything. It wasn’t the first time he’d downright ignore even a general question I’d ask, but it always made my blood boil that he arbitrarily just wouldn’t communicate in any way at times, and I never expressly objected to it in fear of upsetting him.

I kept trying to initiate contact anyhow by asking him something to hopefully spark a debate to discuss what he’d brought up the previous days, but to no avail. I was exasperated at that point, and just told him he could say whatever he couldn’t before, cause I’d understood that that was it for us (or that was the impression I got at least). I would’ve accepted to hear anything at all from him and I told him that too, but he still did not respond, all while being online on discord. With my patience having run out and me not caring what happened anymore, I thought I’d assure him that the game didn’t make me “toxic” as he claimed, that I was always capable of being it instead, and that it only came out whenever I deemed it most appropriate. That how I wasn’t actually suspended/banned in the end said a lot about the company itself (though I didn’t actually believe that. I just said it to see if I could finally get him to talk). And that’s when he removed me from his friends’ list.

I felt like I’d gotten to a good point with him after all those years of “knowing” each other and supporting him through thick and thin, despite me also having gradually become more and more aware that there were very crucial things we disagreed on, I always tried to ignore it and move on for his sake, and therefore there was a lot we should’ve been transparent and honest about from the start. However, now that everything has passed I really regret those last interactions and wish I would’ve been more mature and kept my cool.