"Pretending" to be male online as a kid...

[mimpi]

Count yourselves lucky guys. I've been faking it as male all my damned life Respect to you FTM's, you are the best men I've ever had the pleasure to meet.

[Natkat]

Count yourselves lucky guys. I've been faking it as male all my damned life Respect to you FTM's, you are the best men I've ever had the pleasure to meet.

thanks hon, and dont worry, as long your still alive you still have the chance to make a difference on what you want.

[Sharky]

lol, I did that every time I could make my own character. Habbo Hotel, My Coke Studios, Runescape. And it was really nice because I got the type of attention I had always been seeking.

I played My Coke Studios. The first site I remember joining was Neopets. That was about 12 years ago! I remember my friend being confused why my look up said male.

[blake]

I played My Coke Studios. The first site I remember joining was Neopets. That was about 12 years ago! I remember my friend being confused why my look up said male.

Neopets was the first site I joined too, about the same time. I got so addicted to that site

[pllx]

I did this all the time as a kid. From about ten to fifteen years old, I practically lived on the Internet, and I told everyone I met in forums and such that I was a guy. I got into the bad habit of stealing pictures, but I got over that when I grew up enough that I could slightly pass as male, but I've lost my zest for the Internet the past few years, hah.

It really bothered me to have these people I met online thinking of me as female, although I played my girl role just fine in real life. I think that I saw the opportunity to escape the femininity I've been encouraged to cultivate my entire life, and I couldn't resist it.

Neopets and Gaiaonline were my places, haha. Crazy times. I probably shouldn't have been chatting with people as much as I had at those ages.

[blake]

Neopets - it's all about the games. I had to get more neopoints. I HAD to! 

I think I signed up to that site as a "female". Back then, my understanding of gender was "whatever is between your legs". 

[kyle_lawrence]

OMG Neopets!  Is it sad that I was 16 when I played that game?  I was technichally an aide in the writing lab where people could go for tutoring, but all we really did was sit on line and play neo pets.  I got a high school credit for that.    When I was a kid, we had a 28.8 dial up modem, and it charged by the minute (56k was super exciting when that came out!), so I wasnt really allowed online much.  College was really the first time I had real internet access, and never got into gaming or online forums and chat rooms till I was in my 20's. 

If I had the internet access as a kid though, I probably would have been playing as a guy and making male user names.  I did play runescape as a male character (I was 22 then, funny to me that someone played as a 5th grader). 

[Sam-]

I didn't really do online stuff much as a kid, but I was always a boy on my Pokemon game!

[Sharky]

I didn't really do online stuff much as a kid, but I was always a boy on my Pokemon game!

when red and blue came out I asked for red and my parents thought they were being awesome by buying me both because they didn't know it was the same game. My mom was mad when I never played blue. Then I was mad that professor oak didn't start you off with pikachu. So I had to get yellow when it came out. Pretty much had 3 copies of the same game. I don't want to know how much I spent on the cards. I still have them and pogs.

[viralpiral]

Oh, wow. This was such a huge problem for me. And I say problem because I had a bad habit of getting into pseudo-serious online relationships with girls. It was terribly irresponsible of me, and I regret anyone I hurt in the past. My first serious "relationship" was with a girl in Illinois, who to this day has no idea she had been dating another "girl". I felt safe and happy on the internet, and as soon as I signed off, I was back to my crippling insecurities. I was young tho, and with a short haircut I could somewhat pass as an adolescent male, so I'd use my own picture and complain about how girly looking I was. I'd make up bs reasons for why I couldn't talk on the phone, and why I couldn't visit. It was a painful time, because I needed that normalcy, but it was at the expense of others. I didn't even know what transgender was when I first signed on to AOL and tagged the male option in my profile.

Looking back on all this, I wish I had had the guts and foresight to come out to anyone I talked to. I had some great bromances with fellow gamers, and it always made me feel physically ill that I was "lying" to them. I don't doubt that there would have been consequences, but it's such a disservice to all those great friendships I abandoned that I never gave them a chance to prove everyone wasn't small-minded.

[Konnor]

Oh, wow. This was such a huge problem for me. And I say problem because I had a bad habit of getting into pseudo-serious online relationships with girls. It was terribly irresponsible of me, and I regret anyone I hurt in the past. My first serious "relationship" was with a girl in Illinois, who to this day has no idea she had been dating another "girl". I felt safe and happy on the internet, and as soon as I signed off, I was back to my crippling insecurities. I was young tho, and with a short haircut I could somewhat pass as an adolescent male, so I'd use my own picture and complain about how girly looking I was. I'd make up bs reasons for why I couldn't talk on the phone, and why I couldn't visit. It was a painful time, because I needed that normalcy, but it was at the expense of others. I didn't even know what transgender was when I first signed on to AOL and tagged the male option in my profile.

Looking back on all this, I wish I had had the guts and foresight to come out to anyone I talked to. I had some great bromances with fellow gamers, and it always made me feel physically ill that I was "lying" to them. I don't doubt that there would have been consequences, but it's such a disservice to all those great friendships I abandoned that I never gave them a chance to prove everyone wasn't small-minded.

Whoa this sounds exactly like me!! Except I had virtual relationships with guys. And I talked on the phone to them, and somehow my voice passed. I kind of feel guilty about it looking back, but I don't really think I hurt anyone doing it. Yeah, it was dishonest, but if it had ever turned into something actually serious I would have came clean about it. I guess I should have realized that "normal girls" definitely don't pretend to be male online haha. Oh well...glad to know I wasn't the only one!

[PandaValentine]

I never really started going online until I was 13, but it wasn't long before I realised I didn't have to always sign up as 'female' and so started my secret accounts, I had doubles of just about everything  - that people I knew in person were on, just so I could have the boys clothes and what not, then I got into the Sims and since my sister would make male characters too (for her female ones), I just started saying I was doing the same, except I'd play as the guy and make him cheat on the girl with another guy, lol. Fun. But yeah I remember all the guy names I'd pick too, it was so much fun being a guy online, just had to try it in real life. - Kidding, but whatever, it did really help me come out by furthering my desire to be male.

[hellion]

Oh, wow. This was such a huge problem for me. And I say problem because I had a bad habit of getting into pseudo-serious online relationships with girls. It was terribly irresponsible of me, and I regret anyone I hurt in the past. My first serious "relationship" was with a girl in Illinois, who to this day has no idea she had been dating another "girl". I felt safe and happy on the internet, and as soon as I signed off, I was back to my crippling insecurities. I was young tho, and with a short haircut I could somewhat pass as an adolescent male, so I'd use my own picture and complain about how girly looking I was. I'd make up bs reasons for why I couldn't talk on the phone, and why I couldn't visit. It was a painful time, because I needed that normalcy, but it was at the expense of others. I didn't even know what transgender was when I first signed on to AOL and tagged the male option in my profile.

Looking back on all this, I wish I had had the guts and foresight to come out to anyone I talked to. I had some great bromances with fellow gamers, and it always made me feel physically ill that I was "lying" to them. I don't doubt that there would have been consequences, but it's such a disservice to all those great friendships I abandoned that I never gave them a chance to prove everyone wasn't small-minded.

This sounds so much like my history, some ten years ago. I didn't even always have any setting for my gender, but people usually assumed male and I ran with it because it felt so good. Sometimes it got serious, to the point that someone was seriously willing to fly across half the world for me, and I quietly sneaked out because coming out to him was too difficult. I still feel bad about that incident, because he was a really great bi guy and things might have worked out. The same happened with a couple of girls, but we never had as deep friendship to begin with, so I only feel a little bad for them...

In general, I usually didn't put my gender at all if I could, but most people assumed me to be male and I did not feel right about "correcting" them although at that time I was still telling myself I was just a girl. In fact, I remember one guy insisting on using "he" of me while my friends were using "she" since it was during my self-denial phase. Nothing made me happier than people "mistaking" me for a guy. But overall it was a large part of my self-discovery as FtM ten years ago. When I pretended to be a girl, or when people assumed me to be a girl due to female appearance, I had such a hard time forming relationships. But online, where I wouldn't disclose my gender or people just made their own assumptions, I experienced my first real friendships and even crushes that simply never happened to me offline.