I Was a Guy Pretending To Be a Girl, Pretending To Be a Girl

This is going to get a little weird

(Everyone else is pretending too)

On the internet, nobody knows you’re a cat — Midjourney

I can only tell this story on Medium because nobody knows me here. If you thought you knew me before, this will… undermine that.

It all started with a meme. Something like…

On the internet, nobody knows you’re a cat.

So I was in this mindset. I can be anybody on the internet. And there was this video game I was obsessed with, World of Warcraft, on the internet. But you played with real people.

When I created my character, of course I picked a guy, because I’m a guy, and I wasn’t trying to be creative.

Two hours and a dozen deaths later I said to myself, ‘This is fun, but I’m spending a lot of time staring at a guy’s butt running around. I think I’d rather stare at a girl’s butt.’

My next character was Starrani, an unreasonably attractive female blood elf.

So far, whatever right? Here’s where it gets interesting.

So I’m sashaying along a forest path, admiring my butt and wondering if I can buy heels for a Warcraft character when I get an in-game message from another player.

“Hey girl! Want to join our guild? It’s only for girls who play Warcraft. You’re a girl right?”

I froze. On the one hand, it sounded super fun. On the other hand, LIAR.

Seconds passed.

I got another text. “?”.

I bit my lip, whispered, ‘fuck it’ under my breath and quickly typed, “for sure! sounds fun!”

And then immediately started second-guessing myself, damn, is that what a girl would type? Should I have capitalized properly?

A bright box glowed on my screen, ‘You have been invited to join the guild Friends of Elizabeth’. Raising my eyebrows, I clicked ‘accept’, wondering what I had gotten myself into.

I killed a couple of goblins while I waited for something interesting to happen.

Soon enough, I got a guild message, “welcome to FoE!”, followed by another one, “Hi, thanks for joining!”, and another, “New grrl!”. Wow, so friendly.

Then came the first hint of a problem. “How long you been playing Warcraft?” A real life question. Easy enough to answer since the truth was a legit three hours. But I knew the questions wouldn’t stop there.

I’d read enough spy novels to know that the secret to maintaining a fake identity was having a solid backstory. I needed a backstory. Did I know any girls who played video games? There was this girl in my company’s customer service department that I knew. Maybe I could just pretend to be… her?

So just like that, instead of being a 38 year old male co-founder of a tech company, I became a 23 year old female customer service rep who commuted to work in an old, green Honda Civic. I bleached my brown hair blonde, and I had a small tattoo of a flower on my upper left arm. Not creepy at all.

I let my verbal assailant know that I was new to the game and she responded, “Ask questions! We’re here to help. Talk to you latr!”

Whew. So far so good. I was feeling great. With a crisp view of my colleague’s history, I was confident I could do this. There’s nothing as dangerous as a man with a (fake) plan. I typed into guild chat, “Thanks everyone! See you tomorrow.”

I logged on again the next evening and every evening after that. I made several closer friends in the group. I also was asked and answered (or volunteered) that I worked for an e-commerce company, that I was a customer service rep, that I was 23 years old, and that my car was on its last legs and I wished I had money to buy a new one.

I started to get creative. I didn’t have a boyfriend. I had never kissed a girl. My favourite band was Duran Duran because my older brother liked them when I was growing up. I wished there were more girls that played Warcraft. I wished you could buy heels for your character instead of just shoes or boots.

I did group quests. I joined random chats. I giggled.

It was the most fun I’d ever had playing a video game.

But like all good things, ah, fuck. After a month or so, the head of the guild announced that they were going to start using a new voice chat add-on. I typed, “Great idea! But I don’t have a microphone. Ha ha.”

My days were numbered.

A few days later, I logged in and typed, “Sorry girls, this has been a blast, but I got a promotion at work and I’m not going to be able to play for a while.”

I got a solid wall of text responses.

“Boo!”, “work sux!”, “Was grate to hang with u!”, “Miss you alreddy!”

I pursed my lips, sighed, and logged off. I took off my blonde wig. I rubbed out my flower tattoo. My old Honda Civic faded away.

I stopped playing for a few months. But I missed the game. So I created a completely new account and new character and logged in again.

I killed a few goblins, waiting for something interesting to happen.

Eventually, I got a text message. “Hey, you’re new here! Want to join our guild?”

I responded, “Actually, I’m not new, just haven’t played for a while. A, uh, friend of mine used to be in a guild here called Friends of Elizabeth. She said it was fun.”

The response came after a minute. “Oh yeah, that guild was famous! All girls right? But it turned out when they started using voice chat that most of them were actually guys. Your friend must have been one of the few actual girls. Ha ha ha.”

I stared at the screen. I… giggled.

Then I typed, “Sure, invite me to your guild.”