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I am dressed head to toe in form fitting leather, with boots made for running through field and forest.  These boots have seen plenty of action, propelling me at times as a pursuer, and other times as the pursued.  I carry two long, razor sharp daggers, scabbards laced tightly to my feminine hips in such a way that they make no jangling sound from my movements and also to minimize the span of time required to whip them out, when I assume poised stances of attack or defense.  My choice in clothing invariably tends toward the shades of grey and black which best blend into back street shadows and alleyways, as well as late night forest cover.  Unfortunately, I cut a sufficiently distinct profile that I find it nearly impossible to enter a pub without collecting unwanted attention.  There are always stares and whispers, and sometimes hasty exists from the back rooms.  After all, I am gracefully tall and built like a female panther, with attractive features, and the establishments I frequent are filled with aggressive male types.  I have full lips with smoky eyes.  I keep my copper-red hair cut to manageable length, and tie it up when I go out.  Whenever someone asks my name, if I answer at all, I say “Dorothea,” even though my mother named me Brian.  I am a deadly rogue, who knows how it feels to pierce a man’s lungs with a dagger from behind.  I am a player of the on-line video game called World of Warcraft.

Some time ago, I joined a worldwide community, over ten million strong, made up of people who are all connected, directly or indirectly by a virtual environment accessible by personal computer.  The reason I joined was the combination of moving back home to Michigan after seven years in Europe, and the advancing ages of my children.  I was no longer total master of family time; my three kids had interests outside the home and personal investment in the lives of their friends from both school and church.  Joining the on-line gaming community gave me additional common ground with my son, and to a limited extent, his friends as well.  This activity continued, night and day, for more than five years, before it waned and eventually ceased.  During the course of the activity, I appointed myself the family psychologist, concerned that the volume of gaming would have ill effects on my son, if not on me as well.  My final analysis, from a perspective one year hence, is almost completely positive.  There have been some interesting surprises along the way, and the current media, including scholarly sources, confirm some of the things I already know.  In particular, on-line gaming, which specifically involves direct contact with characters which are extensions, or avatars, of actual people is not merely healthy, but actually beneficial to the players in two or three distinct ways, one of which I will introduce by way of first-hand experience:  Players of such games grow in the understanding of their opposite gender, through spending some time in their shoes, facing problems and interacting with other people as a member of the opposite sex.

I might never have believed the article I read about the increased awareness of their opposite gender that players gain, if it weren’t for a total jerk who called himself Max.  I had been playing the game for months before venturing into the virtual world in the form of a woman.  My characters were totally masculine.  My best character had the appearance of a Viking; I named him Thaeldor, a variation of my son Theodore’s name.  I had a dwarf named Thorfinn, after an actual medieval Norwegian king.  The dwarves were suitably masculine, literally bulging with muscle and harsh, ugly facial features.  My wife was skeptical about the value-versus-waste aspect of spending hours per day on any game.  In order to appease her, I not only showed evidence of my very extensive and diligent job search in the face of the leading edge of a brutal recession and near collapse of the automobile industry, I created a character based on her.  There weren’t any game options pertaining to body type, so she noted the excessive bust lines, but I countered with red hair which matched hers, and an adventurous variation on her name, Dorothy.  She was appeased, so I kept the female character to play when I could show it to her.  I ended up putting in quite a lot of game time as Dorothea, to advance the character, since the game was progressive through eighty levels which were accessible only through game play.  My biggest lesson, however, was in the first ten minutes of play as a woman.  In short, I met Max.

The game is very realistic.  There is full, three hundred and sixty degrees of view, with buildings, cities, forests; entire landscapes that were always there when you travel in a particular direction.  In order to get around a character must walk or ride through the landscape.  There are many characters engaging in various activities all of the time.  Sometimes, public areas become crowded with “people.”  Movement quickly becomes second nature, and the player may gain the illusion that the character is impelled to walk, rather than being moved by mouse or keyboard.  Communication between people is as easy as approaching an interesting character and typing desired speech; speech can be selected to appear for all surrounding characters to see, or “whispered,” the a single character alone.  In the latter case, only the two characters see the dialogue box.  So, I need to explain the incident with that jerk, Max.

In less than ten minutes of playing as a woman, Max approached me.  I thought he wanted to work together.  We had identical quest assignments, since we were both new players, and the game allows sharing of achievements, so naturally I suspected nothing out of the ordinary.  Max opened conversation:

“Hello.”

“Hello.”

“What do you really look like?”

In a millisecond, my piqued right brain flashed a message to my logical side:  “Play along.”  I hesitated, but obeyed the instinct.  I “said”:

“I try to create characters that look as much like me as possible.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“How old are you?”

“I’m of age.”

“Do you want to exchange cell numbers so we can trade naked pictures?”

No!  I was shocked, extremely offended, and totally un-amused by this complete and total shit.  I imagined his character was leering at me, as if he could see me.  The game doesn’t actually have leering faces, and a player cannot be seen.  I typed “asshole,” and “walked off” in an imagined huff.  Incredibly, he started following me.  No matter where I turned, he positioned himself in front of me and repeated requests for my cell number, appealing for naked pics.  He referred to me as “baby.”  My blood pressure raged so much my hands were shaky, and I earnestly desired to do another human some actual bodily harm.  Max was a real person, but his location was unknown; he could have been anywhere in the entire world.  There was nothing I could do, but block his multiplied messages. (What’s with him thinking that repeating his disgusting suggestion would somehow entice me?)  I had to leave the game for a day, so he would go away.  I was livid; he was violating my personal space.  I was afraid to report him to the game masters, however, because if he made any kind of counter accusation, it could result in an arbitrary decision to limit my game use as well as his.  I could also be slandered by him on a game message board, which might lead to harassment by other players.  I kept quiet, though I did speak with my wife about it.  I developed a sense of foreboding regarding my experience as a woman.  My curiosity impelled me to make a decision:  I would never reveal that I am not a smoky hot woman.

I had another notable experience as Dorothea; this time, the table was turned in a way.  During the course of the game, a player usually does make virtual friends.  After some months, I had played Dorothea enough to have seen some players in and around the landscapes and towns I operated in, and working on the same quests.  I often joined “parties,” and some name became familiar.  There was a guy I became acquainted with who was from South America.  I forget his name now, but we shared a couple of quests here and there.  He was chatty, so I let him talk about his home in Argentina.  It sounded picturesque to say the least.  He described green forests and clear mountain lakes.  When he became a little forward, I tried to back off some, but he persisted to the point that at least half the time I logged in as Dorothea, he immediately greeted me.  (The game had a function that indicates when your friends are online or not, and what “realm” they are currently in.)  He always traveled to where I was at, which took between five and ten minutes in most cases.  He was always polite, but I was becoming wary of his intentions.  Suddenly, he popped an idea:

“What if I visited you in the United States?”

“What?”

“I’m coming to America soon, on a trip with my school.  We could meet, maybe, if you aren’t too far away.  Or, maybe, if you live too far away this time, you could visit me.”

I thought to myself, “Holy shit, major trouble…”  I replied:

“You know, I think I’m quite a bit older than you.”  It’s not what I should have said.

“I don’t mind, I think you’re beautiful.”

I thought, “No, this isn’t happening.”  What I did next is something I can’t explain to this very day.  Whenever I think about it, I just shake my head and wonder.  Of course, I knew I had to cut this thing completely off.  I waited until the next time I logged on.  He immediately greeted me:

“Hi, where are you today?”

“Oh, I’m over in Dun Morogh.”  It is the dwarven district where the capital city Ironforge is found.  It takes ten minutes to get there from Elwynn Forest.

“O.K., I’ll come right there.”

The thing is, I didn’t wait as usual.  I played a little cat and mouse with him, just to see how far he would follow me.  He thought I was waiting in the pub in the village of Kharanos, but I was jogging down the path toward the next district.  I was not there when he arrived in Kharanos:

“Hey, where are you?”

“Oh, I was tired of waiting; I’m in Loch Modan now.”

“O.K., are you in Thelsamar?”

“Yes, come and find me.  I’m at the inn.”

“I’ll be right there.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

It takes another ten minutes or so to jog all the way between these two villages.  When he got there, I wasn’t there either.  I actually thought for a minute, I’d lead him further along, again, just to see if he’d follow.  I thought the better of it, and blocked his character; I logged off without another word.  I didn’t dare go online as Dorothea for a week.  He could no longer find me by the friends function, but he would undoubtedly be waiting for me in the city of Stormwind.  It was virtually unavoidable for a player because, among other reasons, it’s where the auction house is.  That’s where people buy clothes, weapons, armor, and other necessities, not to mention getting further professional training.  The kid from Argentina didn’t actually ever find me again.  I was relieved, but I worried about him finding me for some time.