Thread: Being Honest Online

Dogged said Quin this is a really fantastic thread with an excellent chance of building real rapport with others! Honesty and online personas don't always go hand in hand. Maybe it's a kind of wish fulfillment sort of approach for some people that do behave that way. Yes, when I was younger, I felt the need to hide my gender online because of the enforced stereotypes that life seems to force us into. I didn't want to be a 2nd class citizen that was nothing more than spank fuel to the guy on the other side of the screen. I pretended to be a guy in a yahoo chat group when they first came out--I know, VERY long time ago! I learned things about guys I never knew existed and women's treatment of them! In said group, they 1. The women treated the men as steel, unfeeling objects that must dance to the female's whims or they'd be pecked out of the group or thrown to the edges. 2. Both genders got undeserved reputations. My 'guy' was a so called heart breaker because I wouldn't cyber. One girl was very trusting and ended up being called an undeserved whore. 3. Men give douche bag tests to each other. If you 'pass the test' you're in the group. 4. Women like to establish dominance within the group as rapidly as possible and are on the whole, more vicious about it than men are. 5. Both genders lie exactly the same amount online. 6. Men hold each other and themselves up to impossibly high standards of toughness and stoicism that must equate with manliness. 7. Women compare only 2 things--the beauty ideal and rank within the group according to individual and sometimes conflicting criteria. So I revealed my true gender and all the women blocked me. All the men but one, said hey--good joke! That was funny! I learned a scary lesson about stalkers a while back and now I know how much I should reveal and how much I shouldn't for safety's sake. But then again comfort levels are different for everyone. I prefer honesty online, but if someone feels the need to lie, I cannot control them. We can only control ourselves and hope for the best. Click to expand... I think it is difficult if you have a curiosity about psychology and people not to pretend to be someone else online, to experience life through someone else's eyes so to speak. Like you I have posed as a female online, so I know what it is like to get heaps of messages from horny guys who can barely string a sentence together who just want to get off, and no, my females were not horny sluts either, I would sometimes get inundated the second I entered the room without even saying a word! If I were a real female I might have enjoyed the attention even if I didn't like any of the guys. I really agree with the comment about women treating men as though they were made of steel, this is something women do a lot of in real life as well I find but as that is a different topic I won't delve into it here. In terms of being honest online I think there is a sadistic way of doing it and a curious way, the sadistic way is when people draw others into their lies, I was on a myspacefacebook type site years back and there was a woman on there who posed as a younger beautiful woman, she would attract males and basically screw with them, it was later found out that she was married with children, she hurt a lot of people. I think that is different to someone going into a chat room and pretending to be the opposite gender or an astronaut or whatever and just having general type chats without really getting involved with anyone in there.