I can't say I blame Evelys for doing what s/he did. I really can't.
Truth is, you'd have to be in the same shoes sometime in your life to understand. And it's not even a scheme in certain cases.
Imagine. Just, go out on a limb here, imagine, you've lived 20 years of your life as a guy. You've got a nice body, a penis and everything, but you keep catching your parents forget themselves and you know you're the unwanted BOY child out of two. They wanted a girl. They had your girl name all figured out, your clothes and room and everything, but because ultrasound scans back when you were born were ultra-expensive shit amd ultra-inaccurate, nobody actually knew if it's going to be a boy. Everyone (doctors of all kinds that do pre-natal care) kept telling your parents how it's going to be a girl and in the end, they pulled a screaming infant male baby out of your moms vagina.
And then, at about 20, you come into an age of self-identification and start wondering, should I actually be a girl? Does the whole philosophical point of your parents badly wanting a girl have had an effect on your genealogy and had made you somewhat less than a normal guy? And then you discover internet. Where you can be whatever you want to be. Superman, bat-shit crazy, forum troll who posted "America had it coming" after 9/11 or just someone who isn't sure of what he's supposed to be. Especially when you find out that women aren't the only thing that attract you. Sure, you have fun poking them with your joystick, but there's an itch that has to be scratched. You also talk to other people with similar "problems" and find out they aren't insurmountable. There's all kinds of treatments and help avaliable for people with gender identification issues. In some cases, you get helped become what you're supposed to be. Gender re-assingnment surgery included.
So, un-naturally, you give it a test-go, you start with a few un-truths here and there, then you're basically lying as soon as you open your mouth. Making shit up. Cancer, microphone trouble, broken sound card, being a girl, finding a photo on the internet, etc etc.. and generally, back in EverQuest, people didn't really care if you had a pussy or a penis, as long as you did your shit good, they didn't care. But then again, people have been building stuff on trust. And I mean it. They trusted you to trust them and wanted you to be honest. Sooner or later, you find that lying only brings problems. So, you either stop or you don't. All it takes is some shocking realization that by pretending to be something you don't appear to be isn't going to make you more friends and in the long run, will somewhat ruin your life. Or make it harder.
I do agree that Evelys could've come out ahead if s/he admitted the truth and said "A job well done, you've caught me red handed, I'm a dude, party on."
I've been outed one time and I posted on the guild forum of the WoW guild I was in at the time (officer no less) with regrets and told them I'll leave the guild so the guild won't be actually a bad name. And majority of replies was "Ha, I knew there was something fishy about you, but whatever dude, fuck that shit about leaving, we respect you for what you bring to the guild, not if you actually have a pussy or not."
And when I told people the truth as to WHY i went to all this trouble of pretending to be a chick (I was way beyond the point where I no longer had gender identification issues), they were.. hmm.. they didn't take it very well. Imagine you've got a female gamer in your guild, not the only one in fact, there's 3 or 4 more. In most MMO's, I've always felt being a woman is like having a Gold Mastercard/VISA/VIP ticket, and I had my proof there an then. Applications - one mention of being a woman, you're in. Say 2 Alliance are stalking you in Ashenvale - 10 Guildies AND 20 of their friends come to defend your honor (while 1 hour before, a male guy in the guild was begging for someone to get the 5 gankers off his ass in Stonetalon), people giving you gold and cookies and food and potions and stuff.
That's why in that guild, most people had a feeling I hated women or something. Because as an officer, I wasn't lenient with them as far as proving their worth went. I mean, sorry, but from my perspective, if we're looking for a certain type of class/experienced player, we're looking for that particular type of class/experienced player. Not scrapping all the requirements because someday someone in the guild might get a chance to get laid. It's not that I didn't like them. But, we all know this woman equality and emancipation shit. Well, if we're going to treat a woman as equal as we treat a man, I guess there's no room for double standards, allowing late arrivals, missing raids, being unprepared because she was doing her hair for 6 hours etc.
Edit: accidentally pressed post.
Anyhow.. back to Evelys, as I said I can't blame him/her for because other than the wall of text back there, I've known a few people who have been doing that same thing.
- one of them told me somewhat after 2 years of claiming to be a lesbian that she's a pre-op tranny. Lives with his/her girlfriend in Someplace and is a helluva good IT techie.
- one of them went through all those counselling and therapies and in the end with gender re-assignment surgery. Currently married to a really nice guy. Walks, talks, looks like a woman and aside for being unable to have children, is a woman.
I guess it's a state of mind. I still think it's a state of mind, however.. there's a big difference between being a state of mind for one set of people and a different for the other. If Evelys had a full Facebook profile where he was actually a guy and pretended to be a girl just for online duties, well.. we all know how that one ends.
Presumably, women fake orgasms, men fake a lot of others tuff