>My adventures on the internet have led me to learn many things about myself. I’m not a girl and I do not exist on the internet. I do not play games and do not know how to turn on my computer. I did not build my own PC, nor did I buy a video game. I do not own a headset and do not play first person shooters and MMOGs. My life on the internet is an intricate, well planned lie.

From The Escapist: OMG Girlz Don’t Exist on teh Intarweb!!!!1

It really surprises me that as the internet has become massively popular, it is still a surprise for young boys to find a girl online. That a girl would even be afraid to talk in online chats, for fear of being harassed, is doubly shocking.

Perhaps this is more representative of the rarified world of online role playing games (a nerdier crowd can only be found sitting around a dining room table playing pen and paper Dungeons and Dragons), but please, why doesn’t somebody teach these boys some manners?

Certainly, I have been surprised at times to see girls or women online enjoying the same ludicrious games I enjoy. I had a good online chum back in high school who helped me carve out an empire in Trade Wars, and co-hosted a MUSH (kind of like Second Life without the pictures) with one woman and a gender-bent Philipino boy who desperately wanted to be a young anime superhero girl.

But despite a person’s plumbing or sexual preferences, I never once harassed these women for their pictures, demanded proof, or insisted they weren’t what they were. (Even the Philipino MUSH host went unmasked for quite a while until his/her general weirdness inspired me to seek out his/her web page to see what this wingnut was all about – the web page where I ultimately found his/her picture.)

But really, folks, teach your boys some manners. Online or off, that’s no way to treat a lady. Nor is it anyway to treat a cross-dresser.