Having your cake and eating it... but no curry
4:13 p.m. -- 2009-05-11
In a comment to my previous entry, Mel wrote:
"I think it is quite wonderful that you were able to do this - to 'live' for a while as an accepted female in a social group. It's really not fair that it has to be so hard..."
Thanks Mel. I, too, thought that it was quite wonderful. Clearly, I enjoyed it enough to spend a lot of hours that way. It was fantastic, to be able to put on my feminine persona, and spend time as that other self; the one I would have quite liked to have been, I think. Instead of being, at best, "a bit dodgy" and risking a beating from some homophobe, I was popular and I was able to contribute within that community to the best of my ability.
Seeing the world through a rose-tinted monitor, though, in so many ways. Living on the 'up' side of pay inequality. No periods. No biological clock. The ability to transition back to bachelor whenever I chose, rather than enduring that dread of spinsterhood that we see in 'Bridget Jones Diary'. I was, after all, only a part-time girl.
So for five years, I had my cake, and ate it.
It was a fun thing to do, and I think it was more-or-less a victimless crime. I mean, where's the harm? As long as one doesn't get romantically involved with one of the other players, under false pretences. (We had a player who did that, at one point, and a lot of folks wanted to give him the Internet equivalent of tar and feathers... but that's another story.)
It was fun, but it wouldn't be fun nowadays. It'd be a constant search for excuses! In fact, I doubt you could maintain a deception like mine now. A lot of more recent arrivals to the tranny community have tried something similar in communities such as Second Life, and games like World of Warcraft... but as technology advanced, it appears to have become much harder to prevent real life from spilling over into game life. Back in the mid 1990s, I could simply say "I haven't got a mobile phone", and instead require people to contact me by e-mail, or using the postal service within the game. What self-respecting young person of either gender is phoneless now? I'm not suggesting one would share personal details with strangers, but I knew some of my co-authors for years... and I could never speak to them.
By the mid 00s, most multiplayer games supported Voice Over IP - live voice chat - and how much longer before all computers come with a built-in video conferencing facility? Just about all Apple computers have had this feature for some time, now. Pretty soon, whether you get to know somebody through a game, a chatroom or a forum, they're going to expect to be able to video-chat with you - as well as seeing your photos and videos on Myspace, Flickr, Photobucket or YouTube. To continue to present a false identity would require a very elaborate deception indeed; not fun!
To be a girl in a game-world was only really possible in a low bandwidth world. That's another reason why I'm glad I did it; because I couldn't manage it nowadays. It was a bittersweet experience, though, because you have to maintain a certain amount of separation from the friends you make. Some of the UK-based folks from my game would get together from time to time, and go for a curry or something. I always had to make excuses...
Silly, isn't it? That you can have done so much with a group of people, and still fear that your friendship is built on sand. But there I was. More recently, since I've confessed things, I found that nobody was particularly horrified and we actually have a good time when we meet up - but my confession didn't include explaining my motivation. Which is to say, they don't know about my gender-confused status. (I think the one revelation was quite enough, all things considered.)
It was partially as a result of my experience with those guys and girls that I decided upon a strategy of honesty and openness... and launched this diary as a result. Instead of having secrets, I would be up-front about about my life, and my compulsions. "Take it or leave it - this is who and what I am."
Seemed like a good idea at the time. And you know what? In almost a year, I have yet to experience any e-hatred at all. I braced myself for all sorts of remarks when I added the Haloscan comment thingy... but... nothing.
It's not all working out, though. Sadly, I find myself amassing a new collection of friends in a new pocket of my overly compartmentalised life. That's you people. This time around, I have friends who have patiently read what I've had to say, and still want to know me. (Wow! I'm delighted by that...) But I still have to maintain a firebreak between the people I've met here, and my real life.
Picture the scene: I want to meet up with one of my good friends from Diaryland. Maybe on holiday, or just visiting a different city. Now, I don't want to lie to my wife; nor do I want to sneak off and have a secretive assignation. So I have to tell her something of what I'm doing. Maybe even invite her along.
No problem with that. I love some of you people, and I'd be delighted to introduce you! I think you'd find Vicky to be a lot like you diarists, in many ways. Clever, sociable, entertaining...
All would go well, until she asks, "So how do you know each other?"
"Er... I read his/her diary, and he/she reads mine."
"Diary...? I didn't know you published a diary..."
(Fuck.)
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