boy vs. girl voice

Have you ever read a post by someone on this site and thought for sure it was a girl, and then you checked below "her" avatar, and it had a shiny blue male symbol? Vice versa?

This happens to me at least once a day it seems. I'm incredibly fascinated by it, as well. Sometimes it might be their voice, sometimes it might be their name or avatar. Is the quality in question actually masculine/feminine, or is it just my perception of gender differences the culprit? Probably more the latter, but some the former.

Thoughts? Have you experienced this?

 

Happens from time to time, but it's usually ambiguous names that confuse me, or avatars which aren't particularly gendered. Or sometimes a guy just really likes a girl thing and has it as their avatar or vice versa.

When it comes to writing voice, I wouldn't really know. There are some people who are very obviously gendered in the way they write, but it's the people who are less so that trick me out.

 

I don't think my voice - or avatar are particularly gendered, and I don't plan on finding 'love' on a forum, so to me someones gender on here is almost meaningless.

 

I have experienced that. It makes me wonder what it was about the person which made me think they were that gender.

But really, I don't care what gender anyone is, it makes no difference to me.

 

I know right? I, like, totally have that, like, same trouble sometimes.

 

I don't think you have to be looking for love to be curious about user's gender...

IMHO, the differences between men and women are almost all society driven, meaning it is generally your perception of what you've been told is masculine/feminine that drives you to believe men and women should act a certain way.

But we all do this. My association can get confused by avatars. If a girl has a guy pictured in her avatar, it will probably throw me off. Sometimes the username will get me, and even more rarely the tone of the user's posts.

EDIT: Lavarian, LOL!

 

I find it interesting from a philosophical/introspecting viewpoint only. Obviously, it doesn't matter who is male and who is female, everyone's opinion is welcome, etc.

And I hope you aren't looking for love on-line. My Aunt has found literally 9 husbands on-line, but I guess if one were to think that means 9 successful on-line encounters....

 

I have to admit: that when I wrote that I was being a little sarcastic. Sorry.

 

I tend to ignore people's gender when I'm reading threads unless my post requires a gender-specific pronoun relative to the OP (but that's rare). I'd hide mine if the option were there. I just don't think it's important.

EDIT: On second thought, hiding it would be pointless: my name gives my gender away.

 

Me? I just assume everyone is male. Unless I am on a forum with more females then males. then I assume everyone is female.

 

I'd say that's a good attitude in certain places, but there is a hilarious (sort of) thing that happened to me a few months back. I was playing World of Warcraft, which is to be assumed to be a very man-filled game. I was in a random dungeon with randomly picked players, and we all just happened to be playing male blood elf characters, and all of us had picked ones with long flowing blonde hair. We spent the first half of the dungeon flirting with each other trying to make the others uncomfortable,and when we were getting confused trying to work out why we finally asked who everyone was and it turned out we were all 20 year old ladies thinking we were trolling a group of spotty teenage boys. It was one of the most hilarious moments of my life, in a very sad way.

So it just goes to show.

 

Sometimes I think dudes are chicks or chicks are dudes, but usually it's because they have a picture of a male/female as their avatar, so I just assume that they are whatever gender their avi picture is.

And actually, now that I'm thinking about that, back when my avatar was Aragorn, people told me that they thought I was a boy...so it looks like I'm not the only one who does this.

 

Ha! Funny WoW story. Back in '07, I was playing with my buddy from the navy and we became friends with this female blood elf. The way they communicated always seemed so girly (lots of smilies and hearts and stuff) to us, so we had assumed that they were a girl without ever really confirming. She invited us into her guild and we eventually joined their vent channel to talk.

'She' was actually a 'he' and sounded like a middle-aged male trucker who has chain-smoked for thirty years.

We left the guild shortly after.

 

I didn't think you were serious.

 

Much more hilarious than my story, despite being more common. I swear there is some mad determination that's borderline gay with all the guys who hit on pretty female blood elves despite knowing 99% of them are aforementioned trucker dudes, or 11 year old boys who want to marry their character. It's like, come on, what are the chances they're actually a woman? Yet still, every time, they flirt... I just tell them I'm a dude to annoy them if they do that.

 

I think it's hysterical when someones gender surprises me.

I would say that half of the gender differences are driven by society. The other half are general differences that are quite innate, and that they make their impression on society. Which is why it can be hard to tell the difference between the two.

 

"I was just roleplaying!"

 

I think I tend to get at least a vague image in my mind of how a person might look, so in addition to gender, I'll make a subconscious assumption of things like age. Switching my gender assumption when I learn otherwise is faily easy; it's actually harder for me to switch my age assumption.

I actually get people thinking I'm a girl online all the time. I don't really care if they do; I just take it to mean I sound more sensible and eloquent than the average internet user
I do think that me talking about relationships throws people off though. It's always interesting to see which assumption about me people will make first...

 

It does raise some interesting questions about gender. What if there was someone pretending to be something they weren't, but to the person who somehow has an internet fling with them, they never know - it's all words and maybe they never even asked what gender... Just kinda assumed one thing and went for it. Would it still be gay even if they had no idea it was?

 

^ This is a question we need to ask David Bowie.

 

Wasn't there I based on a true story film about this, catfish I believe it was called?

Something about an internet user not being what the protagonist thought she was.

 

Well, I don't know why we need to classify something as definitely gay or not... sexual orientation is seldom black and white, so "is this gay?" questions are kind of silly in the first place.

Also keep in mind that sexual orientation is based on a more general set of preferences. Is the act gay? Well, I don't think that's a very meaningful question. Is the person gay? Well, that depends on their preferences, and a single act can't tell you that.

 

Sorry, just talking in a super-shallow way. I'm avoiding an essay so trolling all the forums I go on tonight with flippant comments.... I really ought to get banned the day before my essays. I literally just meant the act on the silly kind of level that people only care about in stupid ways.

And I'm allowed to be flippant about gay stuff if I want before anyone thinks I'm awful.

 

There are no women on the Internet! It's a well known fact!!

 

And we don't poo either ;D.

Well, it depends. Most of the time I have a general (verified) idea of someone's gender, unless I forget or mix the names up (I have trouble differentiating Eglaisma and Mamamaia :redface. Otherwise, I view you as a genderless mass of writing wisdom .