Dancer Archive
Thread: Girls, does it ever bother you?
Else-Whira
Sun Feb 27, 2005 9:04 am
#170
Sunjammer wrote:
I can't say that any more. Tonight two completely different people asked if I was a girl in RL. And it totally freaked me out. I probably overreacted, but it felt like such an invasion of my privacy; I froze up and couldn't say anything. It was as if they were going to start stalking me if I said yes.
The first time it was /tell after he left the cantina, so I was able to ignore him and soon forget it, but the second time, the guy was standing right in front of me, and up till then we'd been having a normal conversation. I couldn't keep dancing, even after he apologized and left. It just destroyed any sense of comfort or safety. I even changed into a more modest shirt.
Any advice?
I am chatty so I'll answer but then I put them on the defensive by asking the more important question, "Why do you ask?"
I try not to give out any personal info (although around the right group of people I blab haha).
I never give out things like address or phone number.
I don't pass out my photo or post personal information to the web.
Schardour
Sun Feb 27, 2005 10:42 am
#171
Else-Whira wrote:
I am chatty so I'll answer but then I put them on the defensive by asking the more important question, "Why do you ask?"
Definitely a good follow-up to a truthful (or even deceptive) answer.
When a guy is immediately called on their intentions, they're going to re-evaluate their approach almost instantaneously. I've asked a couple of players what their gender is, but only out ofsimple curiosity, or tofind outwhat to expect if I was to continuewith a conversation / joke.
Some men, like myself, are simply friendly....and don't particularly mind talking about out-of-game issues. Of course, I wouldn't walk up to somebody dressed in a fleshwrap that caught the corner of my eye and ask them what they're wearing in reality, but if the topic comes up, I'm certainly not afraid to ask them personal questions, and I wouldn't expect anybody to be afraid to answer. Any refusal to share that information would be respected, but honestly, I've not once met somebody that has had problems with internet stalkersthat found themthrough a game.
)
I try not to give out any personal info (although around the right group of people I blab haha).
Eh.....there are plenty of people out there that probably know more about me than I would like them to know.
I never give out things like address or phone number.
I've entrusted that information with a few people, but only after I've known them for quite some time. But seriously, I really have to care for you to share that type of information.
I don't pass out my photo or post personal information to the web.
Yeah....I just don't have any pictures to post. I'm sure I would if I wasn't so damn lazy.
Anyhow, maybe I'm just one of those innocent guys with no secret intentions (I tend to lay everything out on the table in a completely honest manner), but I don't see a problem with conversing with people about reality. Gender is a simple question to answer, and an easy way for you to take control of the conversation. If they're a complete stranger and you want a larger tip, tell them what they want to hear! Then inform them that you're in a long-term relationship, or something of the sort. If the question makes you completely uncomfortable, maintain your silence and turn them away swiftly. Whatever you do, don't show too much hesitation. It's a sign of weakness that can be easily exploited by somebody with malicious plans....(I've weaseled information out of people in reality by taking advantage of their inaction. "Ummm...." gives somebody too much time to adjust an approach.)
If the question makes you completely uncomfortable, maintain your silence and turn them away swiftly. Whatever you do, don't show too much hesitation. It's a sign of weakness that can be easily exploited by somebody with malicious plans....(I've weaseled information out of people in reality by taking advantage of their inaction. "Ummm...." gives somebody too much time to adjust an approach.)Anyway, I'm not a girl, so I should probably stop posting in this thread. But you people don't know that for a fact..... O_o
But you people don't know that for a fact..... O_o
Esharra
Sun Feb 27, 2005 11:54 am
#172
Schardour wrote:
Anyway, I'm not a girl, so I should probably stop posting in this thread.
I'm trying to come up with an appropriate reply to that but I think I need more caffeine.
Sunjammer
Sun Feb 27, 2005 12:25 pm
#173
FuschiaD wrote:
...and I can honestly say that not one of them has moved to Ohio and hidden in my bushes with a pair of binoculars.
It's funny you should put it that way, because that's exactly the image I had in my head. I wasn't thinking that they actually could find me, but that the would if they could. That wanting to know is one short step from wanting to be outside my window with binoculars. It wasn't frightening so much as creepy.
In the real world, all the men I encounter socially are bisexual, or occasionally gay. Coming from various altsex backgrounds, they understand about respecting boundaries. I'm not used to guys "getting in my face," as Kirah put it.
Umi
Sunjammer
Sun Feb 27, 2005 1:48 pm
#174
Sunjammer wrote:
This hasn't been an issue for me in SWG yet--possibly because I have a face like a tapir.
I can't say that any more. Tonight two completely different people asked if I was a girl in RL. And it totally freaked me out. I probably overreacted, but it felt like such an invasion of my privacy; I froze up and couldn't say anything. It was as if they were going to start stalking me if I said yes.
The first time it was /tell after he left the cantina, so I was able to ignore him and soon forget it, but the second time, the guy was standing right in front of me, and up till then we'd been having a normal conversation. I couldn't keep dancing, even after he apologized and left. It just destroyed any sense of comfort or safety. I even changed into a more modest shirt.
Any advice?
NJ62
Sun Feb 27, 2005 3:52 pm
#175
I've always been wary of giving out too much info. I mean, if I said last year "I go to law school x and am graduating in 2004" which is pretty benign, I narrow myself down to 300 students, 150 of whom are female. If I dropped a hint about which classes I was taking, or what model of car I drive - well then I'm pretty findable. All it would take is someone asking around school pretending to be a gaming magazine asking "do you know any females who game, I would like to interview em." Bam, I'm outed (well I kept my gaming pretty under wraps, but a few people did know).
Maybe I'm just paranoid, but if I can figure out a relatively easy way to find me, or to narrow it down to a small pool, yeah I'm not giving out that piece of information.
Maybe I'm just paranoid, but if I can figure out a relatively easy way to find me, or to narrow it down to a small pool, yeah I'm not giving out that piece of information.
PoetDancer
Sun Feb 27, 2005 4:34 pm
#176
Good advice n'Jessi. Sound advice. This is the sort of thing that can lead to great trouble if it is not dealt with at the very start. And moreover, I have discovered that the ones who try and pry information out ofus concerning our real lives through /tells are usually not the ones that will tipus better, and usually the ones who feel they have a right to bug us whenever they want about things we all log into the game to forget about. They really could care less about your play at that point, and really, they could care less about their own play at that point.
I will only tell them that I am female, I am a scholar, and I am in the United States.And honestly, we shouldn't even have to say that much.Because to be quite honest, I really could care less who they are on the other side of their character. To me, thatTrandoshan is a big lizard.
...But who saysthere is anything wrong with being a lizard in my galaxy.
Message Edited by PoetDancer on 02-28-2005 08:49 AM
kirah_ashlin
Mon Feb 28, 2005 1:22 am
#177
Schardour wrote:
Eh.....there are plenty of people out there that probably know more about me than I would like them to know.
And some of us know more about you than WE want to know, Til . . . .
Anyway, I'm not a girl, so I should probably stop posting in this thread.
Bites back a scathing yet witty retort . . . .
Caerwynn
Mon Feb 28, 2005 2:18 am
#178
It doesn't bother me at all revealing that I'm female RL, I think it's probably pretty obvious anyway that I am. I haven't been in any situations that I can't handle, but as an adult perhaps I see them coming first.
My advice is reveal as much as you feel comfortable with, if someone is coming on to you and you don't like it, just say so. One of the advantages of being in a guild is having half a dozen combat elites turning up to defend your honour, if necessary. Mind you, flashing my TKM tag and challenging the offending person works wonders too.
Attack_Womble
Mon Feb 28, 2005 4:10 am
#179
I have roleplayed male and female character in many online games.
Why, because its different, its fun.
On EQ, made a cleric..named her after a friend of mine online, who was called OiBird. Needless to say this made it necessary for her to be female. In addition, she did look stunning in the plate armour I got for her..there was a lady that turned heads.
In the game, I did have some pre-pube little pillock hit on me in game, to the point that it became too much, and I told the little plank that I was a guy..to which the response is.."What kind of sick guy plays a girl".....I responded.."I might be sick, but you are the one that just hit on a guy, without lifting up the skirt to check first"
Its funny, because I have had friends call me "hun" in game, and not even realise it...and they know I am a guy. It got so bad, that I had to call a friend of mine up, mid raid and say "dont call me hun, if you wanna keep yer nads..thanks m8" . Call female chars hun in the game had become second nature to him, and it goes to show that sometimes u can get caught up in all that.
. Call female chars hun in the game had become second nature to him, and it goes to show that sometimes u can get caught up in all that.I do have female entertainers on SWG. Why? Because I want them to look superb (yes, the guys can be made to look great as well). And they do..they dont flirt, they just dance, play and have fun. I do find however, that a lot of players make their entertainers, particularly female dancers, to be lithe and attractive. On TC-Gorath recently, there was a lack of entertainers, so I made OiBird again, and this time she had a weight problem...but she was dancing herself fit!
We also have a female doc in our guild (played by a female). And we all went on a hunt for the Phase 3 of the FS quests.....I have never seen a character take as much of a beating from mobs as she did, and she didnt go down once. I was completely blown away by the skill showed by this player.
Because at the end of the day, thats exactly what she was...a player who knew how to play the game..
On a side note, I duel her after that...I went down like a sack of spuds...
My mum always said, "Never fight with girls.....you tend to lose.....BADLY"
NJ62
Mon Feb 28, 2005 6:59 am
#180
While we're on safety tips...
MSN and e-mail
At some point you may want to chat on MSN, or AOL, right? Do NOT give out any screenname/e-mail with your last name in it! Geesh, what are you, a noob! First name is personal preference, but even if it's a common name, I would say don't put it in your e-mail or screenname. If you really want to give it out you can always do it later, but I prefer to control the stream of information.
Here's why. Let's say that I've told person X that I am graduating from a law school in City X in 2004. There are 10 law schools in city X, I figure there's no way he'll find me, right? Well at my particular law school, there was only one girl who shared my first name who was in my year. I would imagine that in all the law schools in City X, there are probably 20 people who share my first name who are graduating in my year. Again, the pool has just been narrowed too far.
Decide whether you give out name information, don't let the screenname make that decision for you. Keep in mind that you can always sign up for a hotmail account. I had no problem registering my account and putting as the name "njessi" with a last name of "swg".
Photos
Yeah, they're a bad idea and they can cause boys to go a bit nutty. I used to be really paranoid about photos, but I had to get over that after I went to fanfest and people were snapping pictures right and left. With photos, unless some smacktard comes to a forum where people know me and posts a link, nobody is going to think twice about my photo. It's so unlikely that a person can find me from a photo, or that I'll ever run into these people on the street.
My photo has been identified as "some chick" or gone without identification everywhere I've seen it among the fanfest stuff. I don't lose sleep with it being out there.
Edit: with that said, I do make sure to keep a lid on it and tell friends who have photos to keep them under wraps and certainly not draw attention to my identity publicly. But for those ones that are just out there, well meh, what am I gonna do?
MSN and e-mail
At some point you may want to chat on MSN, or AOL, right? Do NOT give out any screenname/e-mail with your last name in it! Geesh, what are you, a noob! First name is personal preference, but even if it's a common name, I would say don't put it in your e-mail or screenname. If you really want to give it out you can always do it later, but I prefer to control the stream of information.
Here's why. Let's say that I've told person X that I am graduating from a law school in City X in 2004. There are 10 law schools in city X, I figure there's no way he'll find me, right? Well at my particular law school, there was only one girl who shared my first name who was in my year. I would imagine that in all the law schools in City X, there are probably 20 people who share my first name who are graduating in my year. Again, the pool has just been narrowed too far.
Decide whether you give out name information, don't let the screenname make that decision for you. Keep in mind that you can always sign up for a hotmail account. I had no problem registering my account and putting as the name "njessi" with a last name of "swg".
Photos
Yeah, they're a bad idea and they can cause boys to go a bit nutty. I used to be really paranoid about photos, but I had to get over that after I went to fanfest and people were snapping pictures right and left. With photos, unless some smacktard comes to a forum where people know me and posts a link, nobody is going to think twice about my photo. It's so unlikely that a person can find me from a photo, or that I'll ever run into these people on the street.
My photo has been identified as "some chick" or gone without identification everywhere I've seen it among the fanfest stuff. I don't lose sleep with it being out there.
Edit: with that said, I do make sure to keep a lid on it and tell friends who have photos to keep them under wraps and certainly not draw attention to my identity publicly. But for those ones that are just out there, well meh, what am I gonna do?
Message Edited by NJ62 on 02-28-2005 08:00 AM
FuschiaD
Mon Feb 28, 2005 9:57 am
#181
Honestly, I'm pretty open about my RL stuff. Maybe more than I should be. *shrugs* I guess it's just that I trust my community. The folks on Tarquinas all have access to my pic - it's part of a natural curiosity about the people behind the toons. Obviously I'm notgoing to have lekku IRL, and people wonder what I look like. It's natural - I wonder too. I have pictures of all of my friends, AIM/MSN/Yahoo! screen names, etc. Am I going to be handing these out to anyone who asks? Probably not. But if people want to know what I look like badly enough, they can find out.
Okay back to work for me. /cry
kirah_ashlin
Mon Feb 28, 2005 12:30 pm
#182
Well, I suppose I'm a bit more conservative about my personal information because I have 1) had my identity stolen,2) worked many years for a credit reporting agency and saw how frightfullyeasy it is to get personal information online despite the bestsafeguardsand 3) had an old boyfriend locate me after I got married and moved out of statein the hopes of rekindling a dead fire despite the aforementioned glaringly obvious reasons why I wouldn't have been interested.
Funny thingis that it's my nature to take people at face value and not question the sincerity of theirmotives until they prove mewrong - sometimes over and over again. I tend to be rather naiive and accepting of what people tell me and I usually give people the benefit of the doubt even when wronged. Fortunately, I have managed to gather a number of caring friends around me on this game.
Personal information on the internet is simply not a safe thing in these times. Don't think a photo could cause any problems? How hard to you think it is to print out a copy of it, glue it to a fake driver's license and then use it to get a credit card?
Just be wise. You really don't know who is on the other side of the server.