TIFU by accidentally making my entire residence hall think I was racist.

This happened a couple of years ago and I still cringe every time I think about it, but my friends have been telling me to post this on Reddit for years, so here goes:

In my first year of college / university, I lived in the freshman dorms and during my first couple of weeks there, I met and became really close friends with a white guy from Eastern Europe on my floor - let's name him Evan. One day, I went over to Evan's room to hang out and found him lying in his bed, really sick with the flu, so I asked if I could bring him his favorite food. He said that he'd like some chocolate, so I bought some from the local convenience store, and of course, Evan eventually got better. It became a bit of a running joke between us - he'd ask me if I had any chocolate every time he ran into me, and I nicknamed and called him "Chocolate" in return. Really silly joke, but we both got some cheap laughs out of it, like most freshmen do.

Fast forward a few weeks. I'm eating dinner at the dorm cafeteria with a couple of friends, where the vast majority of our residence's 500 or so freshmen eat every night. All of a sudden, I see Evan and his group of friends eating across the room, so to get his attention and the usual cheap laugh, I shout from across the hall:

"Hey Chocolate! Chocolate! Chocolate! You want some chocolate?"

I expect my friend, as usual, to laugh and wave from across the hall. Except I don't hear him say a word. I hear one of his friends sitting beside him start to bawl, and eventually she runs out of the dining hall leaving everyone in stunned silence. I'm sitting there, a little bit confused, until it hits me: his friend is black.

Well, fuck. Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.

Here I was, an Asian-Canadian kid going to university in a country as ethnically diverse as Canada, and I'd just brought a sweet, quiet girl to tears by unintentionally using a racial slur about her skin color, and everyone in the dining hall had witnessed the whole thing go down. At this point, I felt like the world's biggest idiot.

With no outs, I gave Evan a glance, who gave me an "oh shit, what did you just do" look in return, excused myself from dinner, and ran downstairs to apologize to her and provide what feeble context I could. Eventually, I was able to explain myself with Evan's help, and she accepted my apology and we became friends, but for the rest of that year, I became known as "that racist Asian kid" in my residence hall.

Moral of the story? Don't nickname your friends, just call them by their name.

TL:DR; Nicknamed my white friend "Chocolate", accidentally shouted it at a black girl, became known as the racist Asian for the rest of the school year.

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