I've found gaming communities (and I've been in many) to be excessively toxic. You can meet good people there, but I've found it's not worth the headache.
Try RP gaming communities. By that I don't mean that hardcore RP communities or anywhere you have to do actual RP. Just the 'RP' tag in a mmo server weeds out assholes, pricks etc and ensures that there is a high age average in the server. The Wow Eu RP server I have been playing for years keeps getting 'immigrants' from US servers and PVP servers all the time. They escape the aggressive and toxic environments by moving to RP servers. They don't do RP, they just play and join raids and other activities.
I like games, but the ease of getting into a community is nowhere near as low as some people like to sell it as. Especially today. Even if they aren't toxic in the obvious sense, it often feels like a minefield navigating these communities without upsetting someone, getting dogpiled or anything.
Like in small online communities, you get to know the trolls and it's oddly endearing. You see their personality and everybody gets to know them and their trolling doesn't even derail discussion at that point it just makes everyone laugh.
Truly toxic individuals can also be booted. When a community reaches a certain size there is just an unrelenting deluge of anonymous trolls and toxic individuals, nobody can keep up.
To be honest, maybe it's a terrible idea, but I do try to bring my "real self" to the internet and not some crafted personality. I never put up anything I wouldn't tell someone in person. I don't act different than I do in person.
One strange thing is that as my age grows my preference for multiplayer game changes from "competitive" to "coop".