This feels like it needs to be just a bit longer to actually sell us on it, but while it's rough, it works. But as it is, whether it feels cheap and unconvincing, or whether it feels genuine, sort of seems to depend on what you read between the lines about why they react how they do.
(I sort of feel like BL can get a lot of free mileage for starting with a feeling of realism with this premise, incidentally. Like, this is who you'd expect to show up at this meeting, statistically speaking. At least for a lot of games.)