Let me start off with a little disclaimer; this blog and all opinions expressed herein are heavily influenced by my experiences in gaming, and in no way reflect the reality of or generally accepted community opinions surrounding gaming.
Much like males of the species homo sapien, girls tend to act differently when socializing through the internet. This difference in behavior can be attributed to a number of things, primarily the relative anonymity one has when surfing the interwebs. People in general become bolder, more thoughtful (given increased response time), and are quicker to jump to conclusions when no immediate physical ramifications to their actions are in place as a deterrent.
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I can’t deny it, I used to trash talk a whole lot when I was younger. To an extent I still do, although nowadays I’m much more reactionary. But that’s not what I’m here to talk about, I’m here to talk about something a little bit more… controversial? I’m here to talk about women/girls in gaming and how my experiences over the years has changed how I think of them.
Girls get a bad rap in gaming, I’ll be the first to argue that. “Girls are casual, passive, less aggressive, and a lot less competitive”, this is all BS. Girls care just as much about winning multiplayer games as most guys, not to mention their unrivaled passion for story and narrative in single player games shouldn’t be overlooked. I’ve raided with female GMs that ran their organizations with an iron fist, nothing is funnier than hearing a slacker get called out by the guild matriarch. Admittedly, a lot of girls playing online are a bit less talkative, but this is primarily because of the male dominated online gaming scene and how most dudes tend to treat known girls over the net. Cat calls, sexism and harassment of all kinds occur given there’s no real punishment outside of an in-game chat restriction or ban (most of those can be worked around by making new accounts etc).
For a bit of context, I used to run with a crowd that had a couple of girls. It’s always interesting to see two girls in one group because of the “Queen of the Nerds” scenario. The QoN scenario refers to the elevated status most gamer girls have in our massively male dominated community. There’s only room for one at the top, and whether started intentionally or not, drama always ensues. Unfortunately, this also has some adverse affects on the personality of the individuals involved. I have a long, long story about a relationship I could tell you all, and in fact I have in another place on the net, but it essentially ended up changing a good friend of mine into a cold and emotionless person, and she agrees as to what caused it.
In short, the lesson I learned from this experience is that getting too much attention from suitors on the net can desensitize people to romantic advances, both on the web and in real life. When you don’t have to work for it anymore, it becomes much less special, and as a result your personality can change.
Life is an endless social pursuit for most people, and gravitating towards groups and the opposite sex is totally natural. The difference is the internet and how it changes our interactions. I’ve barely scratched the surface with this blog entry, but I hope it was enough to encourage a bit of thought on the topic. You don’t necessarily need to push for more transparency on the net, but if you’re trying to create lasting relationships through such faulty mediums, that transparency will be greatly appreciated at the end of the day.