Jeepers Creepers

I have played countless mmorpg's over the years, and I have also played female characters from time to time. I have witnessed that every once in a while you tend to run into a dude whom will try to hit on a female character and sometimes try going further if they're not set straight. This behavior although sometimes disturbing(EverQuest Ogre District), has never really bugged me in the past because it's always been straight to the point, and when you turn that person down, they usually go on their merry way.

What I encountered recently in PoE was quite a bit of a different story. I would honestly say that after 30 years of gaming I feel like I've met my first real online predator.

I have 2 accounts, my main has a masculine name, my alternate account has a feminine name. I assume this person saw my alternate account first and assumed right off the bat that I was a female.

We friended each other during a rush near the end Archnemesis league.

First thing I noticed was this person had a masculine account name, then a childish signature something like "<3 Little Bunnie <3 #Love#Instagram <3". Later on this person mentioned Bunnie was a nickname.

Second was this person sent alot of compliments and "I miss you" messages. "can't wait to play again". some of these were fast well written paragraphs. I tried not to reply to any of these, because quite frankly I was kind of wierded out by them. At one point this person called me out on not replying, basically asking if he or she was inadequate to talk to me. In which case I replied almost out of habit that he/she was really cool and I was the inadequate one. (am I being groomed here?)

Compliments continued whenever I logged in. Then one night I received this out of the blue: "if you ever wanna talk remember im there for you". I never replied, I just logged out.

Once Sentinel was released we did end up playing some maps together, which was ok. Then the next day I received a message saying "I need to talk to you about something". This is when I quickly jumped in to mention that I was also dude. (He was lost for words)

After this I asked him what he wanted to talk about, he mentioned he has been trying to have relationships with 4 other girls online whom all turned him down.

I barely played much of Sentinel because I felt completely wierded out by this whole situation. I dont know, it just felt wrong on so many levels. I feel sorry for any real girl who has to deal with this.

I guess my main question is if this is a reportable offense or not?

If not, I'm just happy to get this out there, hopefully let the community become more aware that there are some wierdos out there to stay clear of.

[Removed by Support], because they think that's how the (real) world works. Especially when they meet what they consider their wet dream prize, an actual gamer girl.

On the other hand and to be honest, you could have had a much worse experience, those messages are not even that creepy/bad (if that's all that he has sent), when compared to the majority of them you might meet out there.

Shrug it off, but please be alert and be at all times prepared to face more incels and real crazies and creeps, here and elsewhere. When rebuked/ghosted those will tend to be moving to 4chan-style horribly weird and scary rage manifestos/behavior in a heartbeat.

It's pretty well known that online games tend to attract more individuals who have difficulties in social situations or handling emotional boundaries.

Most games have reasonable safety measures you can take if you're being targeted with inappropriate or unwanted messages. Report players who make you uncomfortable, even if you think it will make you look like a snowflake. It could end up saving your life, privacy, and dignity; or someone else's.

And being a male is no protection from being targeted, traumatized, or abused by manipulative, damaged people. You will not solve their problems, you will not make them happy, they will become ever more intrusive and invasive. They may be counting on the fact that you're a guy, to get away with more sleaze because speaking up lets them accuse you of being cowardly.

Treat all you meet with dignity, but be firm about your boundaries and expectations that they will do so in return. And if it starts to veer into the pathological, report and sever ties.

So at one point you decided to "be friends" without the added benefit of being able to talk about everything. Having a masculine/feminine name is actually pretty secundary to the situation, "it" was your friend as long as he brought you dead mice and some time later when the cat asked to be petted you refused in a cold way.

Yes, not all individuals on the net are "stable" its basically part of life.
Sometimes you have to be there for guys from accross the world that did fall in love with a way to young girl, are upset about their reallife connections and tell you their lifestory of helping the doctors without borders put the bullet out of a soldier while having had a gun pointed to their head.
While you may have no direct way to help them, all you could have done was listening, not all people can do that and you should have made that clear beforehand in your "relationship".

I see no way where GGG could interfere, unfriending will be unpleasant for both.

Also be a little bit more carefull, if you suggerate that you could be a girl.
One member of my clan 10years ago did some background research and found out that a person i was playing games with (which never appeared on teamspeak) but wanted to be recognised as a female was indeed a male on other websites.
I don´t care much, i´m a gamer, i play games, i loot items, i share items(a sin in Arpgs), the clan however flamed him so hard for his little lie that he soon lost interest in Hellgate:London.

Unfriend, ignore, etc anyone who makes you uncomfortable. It's important for the internet which has fewer boundaries for stalking than in real life.

If they try to get around your ignore, that's grounds for reporting to GGG, who can do bigger things like bans/etc if they don't let up. Real life law enforcement can help if it escalates beyond even that, moreso these days than in years prior.


Stalking is no joke, internet or otherwise. I know people who have been stalked and people who are stalkers. It's a bad situation for all involved (especially the victim of course).

"

One member of my clan 10years ago did some background research and found out that a person i was playing games with (which never appeared on teamspeak) but wanted to be recognised as a female was indeed a male on other websites.
I don´t care much, i´m a gamer, i play games, i loot items, i share items(a sin in Arpgs), the clan however flamed him so hard for his little lie that he soon lost interest in Hellgate:London.

Ouch. Like half my friends these days are trans and they almost all first dipped into the waters of social transition with online social groups. Dunno if this person was, or was just gender curious, or just looking for attention/handouts, but still seems painful.