I've been in enough groups both online and RL that treat me differently, belittle me, or disrespect me for being female at the table that it's making it difficult to find new groups now

BECAUSE what if they're assholes. I hate finding out people are assholes. It's like you put in all this effort to get to know them or try and then there's an asshole at the center

And you just have to disconnect immediately. THE FEAR OF DISCOVERING JERKS IS SO STRONG it prevents me from interacting with anyone at all lmao

For the record, I did have a D&D group in China. We were really evenly split gender wise

But the DM was... Idk. He punished people. He would take away spells like Guidance and Shatter because they were too strong

So they were just forbidden

And if I found spells or tactics I liked, he would usually make it so I couldn't do it lol

IT WAS SO HARD TO PLAY ARTIFICER WITH HIM because I was trying my best to be a weird gremlin inventor and he was like "Why can't you just make normal things"

Eventually, I stopped going to sessions and wasn't invited back. Which was fair! But still sucks. Lol you know how many D&D groups exist in Shanghai?

NOT MANY

Anyways, if anyone has a recommendation for how to find friends D&D groups in the states, lemme know.......