There's No Such Thing As Gurls On The Interweb!

One of my worst kept secrets is that I was a gamer. I say 'was' because I haven't played in 18 months. In the virtual world, that is the equivalent of being dead for 18 years. Like many others, I found online gaming to be incredibly addictive and it was a struggle to quit. Even now, I can still feel the pull to reactivate my accounts just as strong as when I first canceled them. It's made worse by all the friends, family and clients I have that play and want to talk about it. I have many fond memories in-game and I wouldn't be the person I am or have the life that I do if it weren't for online gaming. 

Nine years ago my brother got me into this little game called World of Warcraft. And I didn't stop for another seven and a half years. I would play for an average of 8 hours a day. No, seriously. On average. And if I missed even so much as a day, my virtual friends would call me and worry that something happened to me. I also had a lot of friends. Flocks of them. I had to delete people off of my friends list because I'd hit the max. Not many people that play WoW even know there's a cap on the friends list, but I found out about it in the first 3 months of playing. It wasn't because I was a natural with mad skillz, or a strong leader, or a great PvPer. It's because I was a "real life gurl" in a sea of nerdy virgins. Nine years ago, a girl playing an MMORPG was nearly unheard of. I quickly found out that being a woman in a nerd world came with great power...and great hazard. For every guy that wanted to be in my good graces, there was another that wanted to take me down. 

I started out playing a character named Kikiyochan. Derived from a character from the anime Inuyasha, then I threw on the 'chan' to indicate that I was female. It didn't take long before I was nicknamed Kiki (gamers abbreviate everything). I couldn't join a group without someone eventually asking if I'm a girl and then voila! I had 4 new best friends willing to give me items, upgrades, services, and in-game currency. Then I was asked to join Ventrilo (voice chat) servers . I was apprehensive at first, with good reason. I would stay quiet listening to the boys' banter and as soon as I would comment the channel would go dead silent until the first brave soul to say, "Was that a 12 year old boy? Or is there a GIRL in here?!?" and then they would all freak out and no one acted the same. This was the norm until I started getting better at playing, which didn't take long with so many willing mentors. 

Then I discovered the forums. With quick wit and a propensity for correcting grammar, my notoriety took off by leaps and bounds. That's also when I gained a group of haters. These insecure little chauvinists were nothing short of vicious with the anonymity of the internet on their side, let me tell ya! It was then that I decided on the One Rule to survive online gaming as a female:

NEVER GIVE OUT NUDE PICS.

There was only a handful of females with me on the forums and we either banded together or were sworn enemies. Typical girls. But it never failed, as soon as one of those girls broke the cardinal rule, someone would blast pictures of their tits all over the forums and those girls weren't seen from again. It is a career ender for female gamers. It's hard enough to earn respect from the guys, but there's no getting it back once you're deemed a slut. There's some that will call a girl a whore just because she had the misfortune of wandering into their little corner of the internet, but pictures were PROOF of that and there is no recovery.

I loved meeting in-game friends in person. After spending countless hours with a friend of mine (grinding rep, for 36 hours straight I believe was the count, Samishie? Haha) I got invited to join him at Blizzcon. HUGE DEAL, people. You have no idea. It was the place to be if you're a Blizzard fan (the company that created Strarcraft, Diablo, World of Warcraft, etc.) and the tickets were nearly impossible to get. I didn't have a car, so he drove up from southern California to pick me up and then drove us back down to southern California for the weekend. Up until this point, I had kept any pictures of myself closely guarded so I was really nervous about meeting him. When I answered the door he looked at me, sort of shocked. "Wow. You don't look like what I thought you'd look like at all." Uhhh....good thing? He was quite the gentleman in person! Nothing at all like the asshole badass he portrayed in-game. ;) At Blizzcon we met up with a large group of people from our server, many names that I recognized from the forums. I got the same reaction from everyone I met. "You're Kiki??" Then pictures of the group meeting hit the forums and there it was again. "That's Kiki?? Dude...you're white?" Hahahaha. Apparently everyone I met in game pictured me as a nerdy asian girl and I am quite the opposite in real life. 

Once my "real life" picture was out (thanks Dragonmaw Real Life Picture Thread!) the requests for nude pics increased exponentially. But I remained steadfast. No nude pix.

I did not have any specific rules about dating, however. I was never short a boyfriend thanks to WoW. People would track my relationship status like paparazzi following celebrity couples. The forums read like tabloids. I long-distance dated the reigning King of the Forums, the top PvPer, officers of popular guilds, and eventually a guild leader. (Long-distance dating is a blog post unto itself.) I was refused acceptance to guilds based on my forum activity and invited to others because of it. I built up guilds myself, and tore some down (not intentionally). Females are more territorial than men might think and often there's only room enough for one Alpha Bitch. If there was already a female officer, she didn't look too kindly on the idea of the pretty forum troll rising through the ranks, especially after I'd already broke the heart of one of her friends and was now dating the guild leader (future Baby Daddy). Everything worked out for the best and we ended up doing really well. Having a nemesis and a rival guild ultimately made the game more interesting. 

Being a female gamer definitely came with its drawbacks, but the perks far outweighed the challenges. I walked away with some amazing friends that I wouldn't have met otherwise, relationships that will always hold a special place in my heart, and I got to travel all over the country (often for free!). And if it weren't for World of Warcraft I wouldn't have my beautiful daughter, nor would I be moving to Georgia! I wouldn't change a minute of it. Oh, and nearly a decade after my online alter-ego was born the internet still doesn't possess a picture of my "bewbs". Gotta keep it classy, even in pixel form, ladies!

<3