Flirting in WOW
I normally play on male characters, so I don’t get a lot of exposure to people looking to pick up chicks in the online world. Yes, we’ve had some issues in game with people sending inappropriate messages to our female guild members (we have about 7 females who play regularly in our guild), but I’ve never experienced the flirting myself. However, today I had an interesting conversation with a random level 12 male night elf druid while playing on my level 12 female night elf druid. At the time, we were both fishing in Auberdine for the quest Gaffer Jacks. I wasn’t paying much attention to the game, just enjoying some fishing while watching Saving Private Ryan. The conversation went like this (my thoughts in italics):
[random stranger] whispers: are you doing gaffer jacks?
—What does he want? I don’t think there’s anyway we can group up and make this faster…
To [random stranger]: yeah
[random stranger] whispers: k cool - I wasn’t sure if I had to fish it
—oh, ok, he’s a newb and had a question about the quest.
To [random stranger]: yep, I have 6
[random stranger] whispers: ah yes I found one
[random stranger] whispers: what level is your fishing at?
—hmmm, he’s kind of talkative, guess he’s just friendly.
To [random stranger]: 82
[random stranger] whispers: wow! nice
[random stranger] whispers: I’m at 70
—a little too much excitement.. 82 isn’t that great. But I have been fishing here forever to get this quest and the Blump quest done.
To [random stranger]: haha these take forever to find
[random stranger] whispers: oh I know! last one I got to level 50 before I got them all
—wow, he IS friendly… hey, wait… I thought he said he didn’t know how to do this quest… maybe if I ignore him he’ll go away.
[random stranger] whispers: wanna do some quests together?
—ummm, maybe he just doesn’t like questing alone?
To [random stranger]: nah, I’m not really doing quests, watching saving private ryan
[random stranger] whispers: omg
[random stranger] whispers: my favorite movie
when is he going to leave me alone?
[random stranger] whispers: can I add you as a friend?
*sigh* whatever, I never play this character anyway
To [random stranger]: sure
[random stranger] whispers: ty
[random stranger] whispers: I’m watching some Friday Frightmare movie lol it’s from the 80’s - on TV
*no response*
[random stranger] whispers: How old are you?
At this point I just stopped responding to him. I’d finished fishing by then and let myself go afk while watching the movie, then logged off shortly after. I don’t think he’d like to know my real age… or gender.
I don’t really understand how this can happen, especially 4 years into WOW. Was he just taking a chance that I might actually be female? Its one thing if you know the person is female because of vent or they’re in your guild (although its still very inappropriate). But assuming a level 12 night elf is actually female seems like its setting you up for embarrasement. No, I’m sorry, I’m not a hot 16 year old girl playing WOW for the first time. Or am I just reading this all wrong and he was just… really friendly?
I was tempted to keep it going and pretend to be a 16 year old girl to see what happened, but I’d rather not have him follow me around all day. I’m already afraid to log back into that character now that I’m on his friends list. *shudder*
So, how do you do it, those of you who actually are female in real life? How do you ward off all the creepy guys? Is this something you have to deal with a lot? I must say, I never get that kind of attention on my male characters.
Being male, I started out with all male characters. But the first female I tried, a Human Rogue, got hit on by this guy in the Fargodeep Mine. It happened again a couple of weeks ago when I was started a female Draenei Priest, although this 18-year-old seemed amazed when I told him I was in my 40s. Apparently he thought WoW was completely populated by teens.
On the other hand, I was in a pug in Dragonblight on my Female Death Knight and we were trying to take down High General Abbendis. After wiping once, we decided to use a combination of alts and our 80s and just repeat the fight until everyone had it done. There was quite a bit of gender switching as well and no one said a word.
I get the over friendly people a lot. I have my own group of stalkers that have followed me across realm transfers. Its kind of sweet in a way. Thankfully im well protected in guild with RL guyn friends who get ver protective of me.
My female Nelf gets most of the action - it’s something about the poledancing I think. at the beginning she was chatted up every 5 minutes, I couldn’t do a thing without being bugged. now it isn’t so bad, I think they figure once you are over a certain level you are obviously male- or fugly… for the worst ones my husband would step in and put the aggro on them. the small time ones get a gentle rebuff, the medium ones get something inbetween. all get the ignore list.
one sad behavior we did see was when we helped an 8 year old set up a character to play and she chose a nelf because the thought they were the prettiest - fair enough. before the introduction sequence even started someone was trying to pick her up. at that point my husband quickly leaned over and told them her age and soundly told them off. we told her to come to us if anyone tried it again. strangely nobody did. but that is just sad.
my main pally gets it a bit, but not as much. we did have a guild problem though with a guy chatting up all the female players and stalking them. he got kicked for that behavior.
so it does happen way more than it should, it’s tiresome but these days I usually just pretend not to have seen the notification in the first place.
I’m 61 years old; I tell them I’m old enough to be their grandmother.
I guess I just ignore it by this point. I’ve been playing for over 2 years, and though it was shocking at first, I came to expect it while I had female-gendered characters. I have a male night elf hunter, and I did notice a marked difference in how much I’ve been left alone (as well as an increase in the number of times I get called “bro”!)
Sometimes I just take advantage of it, which is probably terrible of me, but hey, if I can get something out of it… then why not?
I’ve noticed something similar with the issue of gender in WoW. I’m a guy and play mostly male toons, and even though I am thoroughly aware that most female toons are played by men in real life, I still think of them as female and I tend to treat them better. I have started, when referring to any toon, to refer to them as s/he just so people recognize that I’m trying not to make any assumptions.
But yeah, the issue of gender in WoW (or any MMO I suppose, although I would think that WoW has the most female players) is fascinating and should be the focus of more discussion.
I have two female BElf characters I play regularly and generally other players do refer to me as “he”. I was once followed by a Tauren male in Ashenvale for a couple of hours, he kept asking if I wanted to be his “real life girlfiend”. Another time a pug we picked up in Naxx kept asking me to strip and was asking my guildies if I was this hot in real life. He kept saying “daaaamn you are sexy”. Being the stirrers they are my guildies encouraged him instead of shooting him down to see how far he would go. It got very disturbing by the end, thank goodness we only got him in on the final boss!
Yeah, i stay away fromplaying female toons i try to be fair to all cause once in SM the mail piece dropped and i need a femae shamen 33 said she was getting gear for when she hit 40 and she one not counting the 4 other piece she won i tell people i pay with not to do it … i got 3 80’s all male and tell people on my female belf that im a guy the moment invite or met
I’m female and play female toons mostly cos I’m trying not to let the bastards get me down and I want to represent my gender positively. The being hit on thing tends to slow down once you get to 80 and geared cos I think most of the idiots that play think that a level 80 ulduar geared paladin cannot possibly be played by a woman.
Also that situation you describe where you’re just minding your own business and some random guy hits on you? That happens all the time to women in real life. All the fucking time… You don’t even have to be particularly pretty. And to any guy reading this who thinks, “wow that would be awesome!”, imagine if it were some lady who looks old enough to be your mum hitting on you repeatedly, or someone you find physically unattractive. Cos that’s what it’s like. It’s never the Brad Pitt look alikes.
Gnome females get hit all up ons, let me tell you.
I had a male toon and played a male so well I ended up being the “best man” at a guild officers wow wedding. In the end I had to explain I played a male tauren to avoid the sexism, but I finally had a sex change and now Kora is all cow.
I mostly get kids wanting help when I play female toons, and since I have 4 of my own that all play wow there must be some sort of e-pheromone I have since I just don’t have many problems with any of my female toons.
1 F Hunter, 1 M Paladin, 1 M Hunter, 1 F Mage, 1 F Warlock, 1 F DK, 1 F Druid, 1 F Warrior, 1 F Rogue
I’ve been playing my female gnome and dranei for nearly 3 years, have only had one guy get over-friendly - even after I told him I’m a 50-yr-old mother of 2 teenagers (and he’s 23!).
I find most people are really nice to me, even if I have got the OMG!!! response a lot of times when I’ve initially told some teen my age (before they start embarrassing themselves) in the course of conversation.
I have 2 wow-friends older than me, both guys, one 61, the other 70!
I still assume female toons are female players, I love it that I really can’t tell their gender from their chat ie most of the guys are just as helpful, friendly and considerate as the women players. Wish it transferred through to real life
Lol, I had some weid guys trying to smooch me up. I’m male but I have a female toon but I like to deceive a lot of players by telling I’m female, mehehehehe evil :-p
I once told a guy who was really pushing it: Dude, this game is NOT called Wanks On Women. Grow up and get a life or start playing Second Life
When some guy for some reason or other seriously gets into you, mistaking whatever friendly conversation you’ve had for something else, it gets messy. This one person’s supposedly liked me for few months and seems to consider us something like ingame gf/bf though I let him know i’m not interested and have a bf irl…
Too nice to just tell him to fugoff. He tanks and I heal on our mains though so as long as it’s harmless… 
Also, was that conversation really that abnormal? Conversation like that occur all the time for me. Isn’t that basiclly the tone people talk in irl anyway? Besides the age question which makes a bit of sense when you don’t know who you’re talking to. Or maybe I’m just naive…. ;-;
Yeah, maybe he didn’t think I was female, maybe he was just bored and looking for someone to talk to.
I decided to try out the Blood Elf paladin toon on The Sha’tar EU- RP realm. Just for kicks as my main is a Human Paladin on Darkmoon Faire EU- RP.
I was happily leveling as my male belf when I get this whisper.
“I’m so bored. wanna sex RP?” from a female toon.
Was the person playing female I dont know but I simply replied with;
“As appealing as that offer is, I’ll pass thanks.”
Having said that all the dirty lil girls and boys seem to play elves. I’m not saying all elves are dirty but a huge number of dirty’s are elves.
I’m male and play a mix of male and female toons. I’ve found that it is much easier to get away with the “Can I Need, pretty please?” in PUGs on the female toons. Excellent strategy to get the gear you want.
I’ve never had a problem with stalkers and such though, must be a benefit of playing horde and mainly trolls.
Okay so that convo isn’t that bad…
I’m level 35, and I play blood elf female, because (And my trail of thoughts was as such) gnomes are short, humans yawn, and night elves hairy, ooh look that one looks cool.
And I’ve been constantly hit on, on par with real life, and it’s really worrying. I recently spent some embarassed awkward moments with someone making sexual innuendos and basically verging on cyber…
And I doubt I’ll ever forget the time (you may laugh) where someone continuously typed ‘baby got back’ for over an hour…. I mean its animation right? :s
And it makes me really uncomfortable, because my name on wow is so simple and easily memorized, and some of them follow me, and whilst they may be separate from me rl, its just horrible
So guys, please, stop. It’s just not welcome. If somebody is friendly and cool with you being pervy, its a guy who’s gonna suddenly say 20gold to strip and run away.
Been a male playing a female healadin for a year now, and one time back in my first week of wow when i was around lvl 13 this other lowbie duels me in goldshire. After beating him, he takes a good long look at my human toon and /says (verbatim) “do tou want to marry me” Didn’t spell it right, didn’t make a complete sentence. So i just replied “No im a guy in RL” then pointed and laughed. He just went “o ok bai” and ran off. Remembered him a few months later once i figured out how to ignore people, and his character no longer existed lol.
It’ll always be a problem though. Gender in general, not just flirting. You can’t always tell who is male or female in RL, and there are often people who have names that you can’t determine the gender just by reading it in guild chat, and you never see them avatar-to-avatar. Still get a ton of “why you play a girl?” and i go “cuz she’s a healer in my fav gameboy game and i rolled a healer in wow”