Have you considered not being Australian?
Although I’m an obnoxiously heterosexual man, probably half my overwatch battlenet list is chicks and dudes that are so homosexual I’m worried I’ll pick up their speech patterns, which might cause my wife to ask questions. Hell, in the last month I’m not sure I’ve actually played with another straight man.
Just come to America.
Absolutely nothing in this interaction suggests flirting.
It is a perfectly normal interaction with a person using a word that is commonly used as a pronoun. Same as dear, love, ma’am, sir, dude, boy, man, love, sweetie, and the list goes on and on.
This may not be the case in your particular milieu, but it is extremely common.