I am team leader of an Airsoft team. We have an official statewide ranking and there's a core of us who travel to play in national tournaments. I get that some people will think it's super dorky but it's my passion and it keeps me outside, in shape and with my friends. 


We have a very strict "military-realistic" policy on our team in that we don't allow anime, video game stuff, fake swords, bright colors, etc... And if you want to be on our competition team, there is about $400 worth of uniform gear we require everyone to buy so we look professional and coherent. Again, this is us and people don't have to join our team. 


So to the point, last fall this girl Madison got in touch with me to say she had just moved to town and wanted to meet people and asked if she could come to our practice. Airsoft is like 95% guys so it's not unheard of to have girls play but it's rare. When she gave me her name I was just a little curious so I did a google search and came up with her Instagram and she was (is) gorgeous, she's a literal model and a Boutine girl with about 100k followers. I figured she was just screwing with us to come out and get more dude Instagram followers by showing she was "tomboy" who could play with the boys. I figured that one day and a few shots with airsoft pellets would snuff her out real quick. I'm not just mentioning her looks and Instagram to be gratuitous, it's important to the story. 


So she came out and to my total surprise, she fucking rocked it. She's actually a really good player with a good sense for the game and in the last few months she hasn't mentioned airsoft once on her Instagram. But needless to say a girl that looks like her is going to get a ton of attention on the airsoft field. We had a team meeting before she arrived that we had to treat her the same as we treat the rest of us and that we should have a rule for team spirt that no one try to date her. And I wanted to reiterate that we had to treat her exactly as we would any other member of the team, no exceptions.  Everyone agreed with this but even my oldest airsoft friends bend over backwards to be just a little bit friendlier to her if that makes sense. There is no doubt that in a highly competitive  sport that is 95% men, a "hot girl" is going to change the dynamic. It's not that I mind this at all because she was really good. 


So my first big problem came with her just after new years when she came to the field with dyed bright red hair all done up in these little pony tail things. I told her that because of team rules, she was going to have to cover up her hair with like a camouflage beanie under her helmet. She said it was uncomfortable and took it off in the middle of a game. I called her out on it reminding her of the rules and pretty much my whole team told me I was being too much of a hard ass and I should lighten up. Even other strays (people not on a team) and other teams at the field that day came up to me and told me to chill out. After two years of having these rules, everyone was all of the sudden mad at me because I was trying to enforce the rules we all agreed on. 

Because she is such a good player, we invited her to an out of state tournament coming up in March but I reiterated that I needed proof that she was ordering all the uniform gear from the various airsoft websites and it would be here in time for March. But after the hair incident I think she thinks she can blow me off because everyone will support her and she keeps telling me "I'm working on it" when I ask her. I mean it's literally as easy as going on a website and ordering stuff. That's all there is too it. 

So things just got worse with her clothing and she pays zero regard to our military realistic rule and this past weekend she wore a fucking belly shirt and then was showing off all the welts to the other guys that she had gotten from being shot. She literally looked like a queen holding court with all the guys around her. 

I was so annoyed that her that I needed to talk to her, I reminded her about the military realistic rule, she said she was just hot and that she was sorry. I then asked her again about her uniform purchases. She said that she was working on it but not to worry, it would all be here. I was so fed up at this point I just said "look I'm really sorry, but you just aren't a good fit for our team and you have to leave." Instead of getting mad like maybe I thought she would, she just broke down crying. Which means to everyone that was looking at us from afar I was the mean asshole making the pretty girl cry instead of just enforcing the rules we all agreed on. 


Well in like less that 5 minutes she had invites to join to other teams, pretty much EVERYONE on the airsoft field came over to tell her how sorry they were for her and how I'd always been known to be a hard ass.  And then my fucking team started turning on me. Of the 19 guys on our team 5 quit that day saying they were sick of my shit and the other 13 said they at least wanted to have a meeting this week to see where we were headed as a team. Somehow a rumor got started that I had yelled at Madison and that's why she was crying so the owner of the airsoft field iced me for 3 weeks because I violated his "no abusive language policy." I've known the guy for 10 freaking years and spent thousands of dollars at his field and he iced me because of rumor. This is how crazy this has gotten. 


I think everyone on my team wants to either kick me out of the leadership position or quit altogether and form a new a team. To me, I was just enforcing the rules we all agreed upon and we all agreed that we would treat her the same. I think everyone thinks I'm an asshole. Our team meeting is tomorrow night and I would love to at least get some outside opinion on whether or not I'm an asshole so I know how to go into the meeting. 


thank you for reading. 
