Some girls join World of Warcraft because their boyfriends play. Some girls play because their friends all play. Some girls play simply because this one caught their eye. There are a number of reasons why girls play World of Warcraft, much like there are a number of reasons why guys play. Once they log on and create a character, however, the difference between girls and boys in the world of WoW becomes much more pronounced. Even though they may join for social reasons, the downside of socializing within WoW is often not something a girl expects, whether this is her first game or her hundredth.

When a girl creates an account and starts to play World of Warcraft, there are a few possible outcomes that could happen. If she picks an obviously girly name like DaisyDuke, ILUVJOE, or PrincessRainbowGlitter it is likely that other players will see that she is a girl and some teasing and heckling will commence right away. She may, however, get mistaken for a guy playing a female character, in which case she may get some teasing but avoid many people trying to hit on her. With the abundance of night elves and blood elves about, it is fairly common for a male player to play a female character. One player I spoke with about this reasoned that if he is going to spend so much time playing a character, it might as well provide a pleasant view for him. All guys joke around with each other, but as soon as it becomes known that the person behind the character is actually female, the fun begins. “A/S/L?”, “do you have a Myspace?”, and “can you send me a pic?” become common questions. (Common being a polite way of saying that these are asked over and over without mercy until the poor girl stops conversing.) If she’s on Ventrilo or another audio communication program, inevitably someone will say “dude, your voice sounds HOT” and the attempts to hit on her will start to pile up. The majority of guys make some clumsy attempt to call attention to her sexually, or possibly fall back on the old favorites of calling into question her looks or her weight. Some will try to be nice, but with the obvious intent to get more than just her character name. Let’s face it; as soon as a girl enters the World of Warcraft scene there are guys jumping to get her attention.

Why is this so pervasive? If a girl walks into a classroom or a store in America she’s not likely to hear guys yelling about how hot she is or ask her about her bra size. Social norms would clearly define that behavior as unacceptable and rude. So what makes it okay to do this in Azeroth? Do they really think that sort of behavior will fill women with adoration? One can only guess at what they assume their chances are, but because it’s a virtual world, they hide behind their characters and test their limits to their hearts’ content. WoW chat allows them to do something they love and are good at (play video games) and occasionally come into contact with girls. If the guy is not terribly confident around girls in person (and honestly, how many of us aren’t awkward around the opposite sex?) then he sees this as a perfect time to test out his wooing skills. However, the problem lies in the fact that he is not held accountable for behaving badly, and chances are more likely than not that he will never see this girl in person, so he doesn’t really have a chance with her. Because she’s a girl (but not one he has a lot of hope with) he can try things out as he pleases while giving little thought to her feelings. After all, she’s just a screen name, right? No matter how good you consider WoW’s graphics to be, you’ll still be hard pressed to see the humanity creatures on the screen in front of you. So players say things they always wanted to say, but were afraid to say to the fairer sex in person. Often it seems they are saying things just for the sake of titillation. They know they are rude, but are goaded on by the reaction from their friends. Perhaps they don’t see that they are acting like jerks because of a foregone conclusion that the girl is unavailable and in doing so fulfills the prophecy themselves. It’s understandable that guys who have little experience dealing with girls on a personal level (either by not dating, or not having female friends, or female family members to learn from) will be unsure about how to act around them. To mask this, they act out in a brash way to show how cool they are to their friends or because they’ve heard “nice guys finish last.” Other guys see this and think it’s normal, so they take the cue and act that way as well. Soon all this evolves into a competition to see who can have the best line, often times forgetting that they are dealing with an actual female who just might be single, and who just might have been interested in one of them if they had behaved themselves. Most of the time, however, they don’t and by creating such a situation they lose any chance they might have had in meeting someone new.