Don't ask, don't tell - Relationship Thought Experiment

[Azurymber]

You’re assuming everyone that plays a character of the opposite gender is transgender now, though. Maybe they want to play something different. Maybe they’re just doing it for fun. Maybe they play the opposite gender because they find them attractive, in the way people find virtual characters attractive. Them playing a toon of the opposite gender does not automatically equate to them “being themselves”, as in “I actually identify with this gender”. And you have no quantifiable data to support this as the “likely” reason either. It’s all just assumptions with no basis.

I'm assuming -most- (not all) people telling other people (e.g. all their friends online) they are gender-X are gender-X. (whether cis or trans)
Not that a guy playing a girl character is automatically trans.

It seems very irrational to assume that if you have 100 individuals claiming to be girls, the majority of them are doing so to trick people, or to scam gil out of people, etc.

In fact I'd argue that if someone's saying most of them are gay people trying to trick straight people into dating them, they are probably homophobic. There are LGBTQ ls's, fc's, communities, etc. Gay people don't need to trick straight people into liking them to form a relationship.

And I'm sure there are a few guys who pretend to be girls to get money. But I honestly think it's ridiculous to assume there are 1000s of guys that live their entire online lives as female (e.g. pretend to be female with all their friends) just so they can get a few extra items and more help.

[Skivvy]

It seems very irrational to assume that if you have 100 individuals claiming to be girls, the majority of them are doing so to trick people, or to scam gil out of people, etc.

Welcome to MMOs.

[HyoMinPark]

I agree with this.
But i think it's a bit of a stretch to assume the OP is specifically talking about men who play female characters and not people who express themselves as female.
It should be pretty obvious to anyone that some men play female characters, and some females play male characters.

if the op is really that naive then yeah, my posts are irrelevant.

In all fairness, both are stretches. You don’t really have any proof of either. The only thing to really settle this debate is the OP coming back and clarifying his stance, rather than the vague OP that didn’t really provide answers to the things being discussed here.

It seems very irrational to assume that if you have 100 individuals claiming to be girls, the majority of them are doing so to trick people, or to scam gil out of people, etc.

Bless you, I wish I could live in a world where I thought people weren’t liars, but, then again, I have been on the receiving end of a lot of lies.

[Wiccan026]

I can only speak from my experiences.

I'm a guy and I play both girl and guy characters. I have always been upfront with the fact that I am a guy because I am in fact a gay male.

Over the years, I've had issues with this and that is with even the fact that I've been upfront with them. The only time in my life I have been accused of "catfishing" a guy was years ago, after I told him my name in advance (which is a clear guy name) and he got confused because of the way I sounded and the fact that a friend we played with called me "Terra" (he still does to this day, when we met at comic con he shouted it when he saw me ran up and hugged me) and thought that I was trying to "hide the fact that I was a girl".... also I never expressed any interest in the guy who accused me of catfishing him... but he still got mad at me and said played with his feelings in some manner.

I have posted in the mega marriage thread because I do have multiple characters and two of them don't currently have a plan for getting someone (and I would like to have them marry someone) I actually play these characters (said characters are both in Stormblood and have grandfathered houses) because I play all of my characters... they just have less jobs than my main (trying to keep it down to like a minimum of three, one dps, healer, tank... although I don't have a tank yet) because I can do things adequate enough for all roles and I like quick queues.... it's just my playstyle.

In short (kind of went off on a tangent) I think you need to be honest and upfront, not vague because at the end of day honesty is the best policy (and causes less issues in the long run.

[AriaFairchild]

What is this I don't even...
A Nigerian prince is probably more likely to be legit than a relationship online...

[Wiccan026]

What is this I don't even...
A Nigerian prince is probably more likely to be legit than a relationship online...

Hmm I find that example slightly more far fetched than a relationship online.

Over the years I've met several couples that were in either long relationships with one another or married who first met while playing games online.

Granted it's not common and not for everyone but it has happened far more than finding a Nigerian prince

[Magic-Mal]

Bless you, I wish I could live in a world where I thought people weren’t liars, but, then again, I have been on the receiving end of a lot of lies.

Well when you think about it.. are you willing to believe that the 80% of responders in this thread that seem to be/are female are actually female? Just by what they have say(or have said in previous threads)? I do. I find it.. funny, how the stigma persists where the thread itself is mostly all female.

I genuinely don't think there are catfishers around every corner.

[HyoMinPark]

Well when you think about it.. are you willing to believe that the 80% of responders in this thread that seem to be/are female are actually female? Just by what they say? I do. I genuinely don't think there are catfishers around every corner.

Does it really matter what I think? I don’t really assume people’s gender based on how they talk because people have all types of different speech patterns. I don’t really assume genders at all because I simply don’t care to - it’s really none of my business, especially with strangers that I just debate with on here. And whether or not people believe I’m actually a female in real life or whether I believe them doesn’t really matter when it comes to forum discussions. But when it comes to relationships, that’s a completely separate matter.

I find it.. funny, how the stigma persists where the thread itself is mostly all female.

What stigma? That people lie? What are you even getting at?

My comment I posted is completely with regards to myself. Just because I know there are liars doesn’t mean there’s some pervasive stigma. This isn’t me saying I believe everyone I meet lies, either; it is me saying that I generally don’t take much of what an individual says at more than face value until I feel I can trust them. People build trust at different paces. But this is all irrelevant when it comes to a forum discussion, and far more relevant when it comes to things like the matters being discussed here.

I believe there are liars because I have met them - several in this game alone - and, unlike some, I only speak for myself here with regards to personal things like this.

[LalaRu]

The difficulties arise when you mix game and real life. Things are much more easy when you learn how to keep them distinct.

EB? When proposals (or just hints to that) happened to me, I'd always make clear that I want irl and game kept separated. Who I am, where I live, anything else irl, is my own privacy and no one can get there. This will help you to avoid bad situations later. Granted.

[BillyKaplan]

Males playing the game would hyper invest into people/characters they believed were females in real life. They expected things to progress into a real-world physical encounter.

Hard stop. This. Right here. This is the problem. No one owes them anything. If they fall for the persona they built in their heads, it's their problem and they need to take a big step back and remind themselves this is a game, a virtual environment. Sure, there are different situations, my guy got EB'd to a chara played by my at-the-time long distance BF. But that EB, as well as all my other charas' relationships, came after I got to know the players first. The chara dating came later, and still bears no impact on my friendships with these people, just like how I'm still friends with players whose charas my guy would rather murder.
Perspective is important.