It was someone in China working for a game company trying to flirt with you to get you to sign up and play their game with them
Sometimes you gotta remember that everyone has their own shit going on, and it’s a bit self-centered to assume, every time, that it has to do with you. Especially when it comes to online dating.
Fake: There are no girls on the internet
Gay: OP was flirting with a man
Fake: OP was flirting with a raccoon
Gay: OP talks about feelings
Too obvious and on the nose.
Yeah I’ve let myself down here. Had a good streak going but I’ll let someone else take the wheel for a while.
online
There’s your problem
Too much crazy too fast. You gotta sit on that shit for a while, and then let it out slowly.
I got to “she has to go to bed” before I realised that this was all the same day.
Trauma dumping can be cathartic but perhaps maybe don’t do it within the first two hours of having met someone. Also don’t do it too much because your problems aren’t there problems.
It’s definitely a third date or beyond activity. When I was single, I always asked third dates to compare their emotional baggage with me, but wouldn’t discuss it in depth until later. We all have it, so might as well bring it out but not all of it at once. Better to savor the pain.
I guess wait until the afternoon or something then?
homie needs to learn about talking to people in real life.
Because men don’t have a strong enough social support system to have cathartic talks about their emotions. Because women aren’t willing to disproportionately shoulder emotional labor anymore.
The patriarchy hurts everyone. Normalize discussing mental health among men. Don’t let stigma stop you from telling your friends from how much they mean to you and how you’re here if they need to talk.
Why is there always an assumption that women have support? Also, you really shouldn’t trauma dump on your friends either - they won’t be able to give you space and it may affect them emotionally. Go to a support group and share there.
My (presumably) man, get better friends. If I can make a friend of mine feel better by listening to him, why wouldn’t I? I may not know what to say, but I would try my best. The saddest (on an inter-personal level, not as in “the world is going to shit”) thing I experienced recently was a friend of mine basically disappearing because of mental health issues. I think I understand why he did that, comparing yourself to others sucks, but I wish I could help him more than the occasional “hey, how are you doing?” when we randomly meet somewhere.
The latest Modern Love episode is relevant
Where Did All My Male Friendships Go? https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/13/podcasts/male-friendships-loneliness.html
It doesn’t overanalyze but covers one man’s experience that I found relatable
Don’t let stigma stop you
Fully recognizing that my initial reaction to the word “stigma” makes me part of the problem.
stigma love and compassion into this relationship lmao gottem
Just get used to rejection, until you become enlightened enough to realize that life is suffering and you only have value insofar as how useful/reliable to others you are.
Anyone telling you otherwise is stunting your growth.
This sounds like less of a truth and more like you are lashing out. Are you OK man?
Not only that, but the upvotes. So at least 4 people agree. Are you all ok?
It’s a Buddhist misquote, it should read “there is suffering in life” but it’s often interpreted as “life is suffering.”
The intent is to express that our own desires and material wants are often the root causes of our suffering and if we can begin to understand that we can begin to free ourselves from the suffering that occurs in this existence.
But it does sound nihilistic as fuck on its own.
See that makes way more sense, but I’m rereading the original comment and I’m still not getting that. I’m guessing Buddha didn’t say “you only have value insofar as how useful/reliable to others you are”
Edit: I guess this is kinda similar. I don’t think I like the word “useful”. I prefer the below phrasing
The value of life is not based on how long we live, but how much we contribute to others
in our society.
Bro has been hurt
or excusing poor behavior because of past pain. we’re all responsible for our own actions.
Because no one is going to tolerate attention from someone who hasn’t any outside theselves. Just because someone’s ego is of a despicable opinion doesn’t mean they’re not narcissistic. It does mean they don’t yet know what the fuck to think about what they see.
Want a short cheat sheet?
Ego exists to create dying
Murder any notion of that sense. You’ll never be worth attention from outside youself any time you spot that nonsense.
Just ask the downstairs daddy that eats the dead.
Psi is Psy is Sci is Sigh
> pretending to be a girl online so that i can get just a little attention from a human being for once
> talking to this guy, seems really sweet and we have a bunch of common interests
> mfw i actually start to really care about this guy
> he alludes to abandonment issues in his past
> ohno.jpg
> panic, tell him i have to go to bed
> try to go to bed but can’t sleep from guilt
> can’t bring myself to message him the truth that i am a girlpretender attention whore
> decide just blocking him is the least painful option for both of us
am i a bad person?Date I say, fake and gay?
fake: anon has positive human interaction
gay: there are no girls on the internet
YTA.
I bet everyone has pretended to be the opposite sex online. Maybe just for the giggles. But anyone who does that all the time, straight to hell.
I can’t find the original source right now, but a study found that 50% of men pretended at least once in their lives to be women online, whereas 0% of women pretended to be men.
I doubt the 0% part on women. I have met many women who claim to start off indicating they are male in online games, and avoid voice. Once they feel like they have a group of people who aren’t going to perv on them they make their gender known.
I never have on purpose, but in games i like to play as female characters. This was very useful in runescape back in the mid-2000s. Desperate guys would just asume you were a girl IRL and give you free shit asking to be your boyfriend.
I got a load of grief for playing Fortnite as Penny, mainly from a family friend who kept banging on about “oh look, that’s his type there!” or “like a buxom blonde, do you?”
I’m like motherfucker she’s British and she’s an engineer so I’m choosing to play as her because that’s awesome as fuck, not because what’s between the legs you fucking buffoon
If she’d started popping off about just playing Fortnite I’d have been “yeah fair enough mate, maybe I am a shithead” but the whole implied “you’re a guy so you must fancy her if you’re using a girl model” just really got on my tits… to use a poorly timed expression.
I only ever played beta Fortnite, so I don’t really know who we’re talking about, but I thought all of the characters were generic, I didn’t know there were classes.
It’s been a while since I played, I only get involved in the live events these days.
I don’t think there are classes in Battle Royale, but Save the World had different “classes” in the loosest sense.
I play guitar hero as Casey Lynch. I figure why play as who you look like when you can play as who you want to look at?
If I were going for accuracy to body type, I’d have to pick Lars Umlaut…
All my WoW alts were female because my then-girlfriend thought dudes were giving her all kinds of stuff because she was such a good healer. To prove a point I made a level 1 female character and undressed on the Orgrimmar mailbox, and made more gold than her main had in like 10 minutes. Sleeping on the couch was so worth it.
or straight to therapy and hopefully a trans supportive community haha (not that it would excuse catfishing)
I try to not reveal my gender when speaking online. I don’t fell it pertinent and it is nice to be able to act which ever role you chose to at the moment.
Bingo, bango! Whenever gender comes up, I flip a coin for what I’ll answer. With rare exception, gender is meaningless in most places and is only being used by the other side as a red herring at best.
“Apparently, today I am… the queen of england. Huh.”
That’s kind of a weird assumption. What qualifies as pretending? I don’t think I have ever done that.
I’m a woman on Lemmy with a gender-neutral username, which means I don’t have to try to “pretend” anything - people assume I’m a guy by default. Hell, it also happened back when I was on Reddit and used a female-coded username, which is even more confusing.
I can only imagine the gender performances these guys are putting on if they’re able to easily convince others that they’re women. Some people apparently take “there are no women on the internet” literally and can’t seem to process when women appear online (in a non-porn context, at least. Which is really disheartening.) I’ve had people full-on argue with me that I couldn’t really be female, because I once posted a picture that included my hand and apparently it “wasn’t feminine enough.” (That’s what I get for keeping my nails short and disliking nail polish, I guess. Who knew even women’s hands are expecting to conform to rigid gender expectations?)
imagine the gender performances these guys are putting on
Hello, fellow woman. Would you like to go to the bathroom together and have periods?
Sorry, I already had my period at lunch. Maybe later for dinner periods?
There can’t be women online, that’s impossible! Websites aren’t pointlessly gendered!
Being a woman is gay, so you must be fake.
Conclusion, women on the internet are fake and gay.
Fellas, is it gay to be a woman?
back on reddit almost everyone was a white young middle class male westerner, so that was my default assumption. and i rarely read usernames there.
lemmy breaks this for me because it sounds like people want to be themselves much more. feels way more free and diverse, and its nice.
Based on my All feed everyone on Lemmy is either American or, for some reason, German.
Say you’re a girl when you aren’t a girl in order to fool the other person into thinking that you’re a girl
So if men playing as female avatars in games don’t count (that openly admit to it), then I would say it’s probably a very small group of men who actually do that.
i got mad gp from pretending to be the opposite sex in runescape
I had an acquaintance who used a voice changer on dnd online, and was both given crazy loot and allowed to act like an absolute ass without consequence. It’s amazing how thirsty some folks can be.
For me it was Habbo Hotel. I’m hearing this sort of shit is rampant on Roblox. It’s nice to know kids are keeping some traditions alive.
Thanks for the suggestion. I never thought about it!
Just having a chill conversation with someone online.
They tell me that they’ve had their heart broken in the past and they’re very sensitive.
mfw I had no idea this was a date is this person completely bonkers
that’s okay, I’ll be nice to you!
This you? 🧐
I would absolutely say something like that while freaking out - even though this is online and I’m not in any danger
seems like you dodged a bullet?
Unsolicited “good morning message” - is that what it’s called now?
Never have I ever met someone real-life online 🍻
I did. Went hiking with a guy I met in an online game that turned out to live nearby. Pretty nice dude, I have to do that again some day.
The thing is, you never know. FBI agent? Serial murderer? Normal person?
Those two worlds must not collide.
Well that’s what 3D printers are for.
That’s because online people aren’t real. All paid actors and bots (sometimes both).
Even the dogs are FBI agents
… and don’t get me started on the “birds”
ActorTron 5000
NGL I do not miss keeping up with that shit. Its such a drag. Yet somehow waking up and saying good morning to someone is the shit.
Her Boyfriend found the message and blocked him
