> pretending to be a girl online so that i can get just a little attention from a human being for once
> talking to this guy, seems really sweet and we have a bunch of common interests
> mfw i actually start to really care about this guy
> he alludes to abandonment issues in his past
> ohno.jpg
> panic, tell him i have to go to bed
> try to go to bed but can’t sleep from guilt
> can’t bring myself to message him the truth that i am a girlpretender attention whore
> decide just blocking him is the least painful option for both of us
am i a bad person?I bet everyone has pretended to be the opposite sex online. Maybe just for the giggles. But anyone who does that all the time, straight to hell.
I never have on purpose, but in games i like to play as female characters. This was very useful in runescape back in the mid-2000s. Desperate guys would just asume you were a girl IRL and give you free shit asking to be your boyfriend.
All my WoW alts were female because my then-girlfriend thought dudes were giving her all kinds of stuff because she was such a good healer. To prove a point I made a level 1 female character and undressed on the Orgrimmar mailbox, and made more gold than her main had in like 10 minutes. Sleeping on the couch was so worth it.
or straight to therapy and hopefully a trans supportive community haha (not that it would excuse catfishing)
I try to not reveal my gender when speaking online. I don’t fell it pertinent and it is nice to be able to act which ever role you chose to at the moment.
Bingo, bango! Whenever gender comes up, I flip a coin for what I’ll answer. With rare exception, gender is meaningless in most places and is only being used by the other side as a red herring at best.
That’s kind of a weird assumption. What qualifies as pretending? I don’t think I have ever done that.
I’m a woman on Lemmy with a gender-neutral username, which means I don’t have to try to “pretend” anything - people assume I’m a guy by default. Hell, it also happened back when I was on Reddit and used a female-coded username, which is even more confusing.
I can only imagine the gender performances these guys are putting on if they’re able to easily convince others that they’re women. Some people apparently take “there are no women on the internet” literally and can’t seem to process when women appear online (in a non-porn context, at least. Which is really disheartening.) I’ve had people full-on argue with me that I couldn’t really be female, because I once posted a picture that included my hand and apparently it “wasn’t feminine enough.” (That’s what I get for keeping my nails short and disliking nail polish, I guess. Who knew even women’s hands are expecting to conform to rigid gender expectations?)
imagine the gender performances these guys are putting on
Hello, fellow woman. Would you like to go to the bathroom together and have periods?
Because men don’t have a strong enough social support system to have cathartic talks about their emotions. Because women aren’t willing to disproportionately shoulder emotional labor anymore.
The patriarchy hurts everyone. Normalize discussing mental health among men. Don’t let stigma stop you from telling your friends from how much they mean to you and how you’re here if they need to talk.
Why is there always an assumption that women have support? Also, you really shouldn’t trauma dump on your friends either - they won’t be able to give you space and it may affect them emotionally. Go to a support group and share there.
There wasn’t. I never said every woman always has support. I only said that men struggle with vocalizing mental health needs among their friends.
If talking to your friends about trauma at the appropriate stage in your friendship is considered trauma dumping, I’m sorry to say that I’m afraid you don’t have close friends.
That, or you’re coddling and patronizing your friends for lacking the emotional maturity to handle deeper conversations.
True friendship comes from being comfortable with your vulnerabilities around your friends, and having each other’s backs. A support group isn’t a substitute because it’s premise is transactional in nature, where you are expected to talk about and listen to trauma without attachment.
