The Real Life of Online Role-Playing

Roleplaying: it's one of those things that most people have heard of, but not truly thought about or tried. The first thing most people think of at the word "roleplaying" is kinky costumes in the bedroom, or video games like Final Fantasy XIV or Skyrim. For someone like me who is on their computer out of boredom, there is online roleplaying. This means messaging someone else, possibly in another country, and playing out scenarios with or without sexual content. More-often-than-not, it is a sexual, anonymous chat to play out fantasies or characters. There are so many different types, and different ways to do such things. It is honestly so much fun. I am considered to be addicted to the escape from my real life through essentially co-writing stories and fan-fictions that are beyond anything true to life, or the ones so realistic you feel like it's a second life. Role-plays can range from being a simple hookup scenario to a crazy fantasy land with dozens of characters living and dreaming to the extent that a few have made me cry—happily, or in empathy to my character's hardships.

As a common role-player, I work with playing fandoms of romances with my favorite characters like the Avengers, anime or game characters. Sometimes I go for original characters with certain kinks, like furries or bondage. I'm sure as you read this you have a billion questions about what I'm even talking about. Fandoms are the shows or games that you can use characters, scenarios or settings from if you know anything about them. Furries, or anthros, are sentient beings with both animal and human features that can talk. Think of Zootopia, the animals stand, wear clothes, and go to work. There are so many possibilities for your pleasure to play with, and it doesn't have to be sexual. Remember as a child how we could play pretend and be anything or anyone we wanted to be? Or playing with Barbies and GI Joes? You and your friends could be the power rangers, or ninjas, even mermaids. You weren't judged for it, because you were just a kid playing, and exercising your imagination.

As adults, it mostly turns to smut—but not always. And as adults (or any age over ten), you may admit your involvement in things like this and most people will look at you strangely—because they grew out of the mindset, I suppose. I always have been very imaginative, so once I was thirteen or so I found a site called Gaiaonline.com. Gaia, as most users call it, was for anime roleplaying. I met people on the site who taught me about it and have been hooked ever since. As I've continued to role-play, I found more mature sites like bluemoonroleplaying.com. It's a hobby, but it's considered odd and I feel like it is very misunderstood. Yes, there are even things that come up and make me cringe. We all have limits to how strange of a situation we can tolerate before we can't stand it anymore.

We are portrayed as hermits who live at their computers in the dark, just like gamers. It's not true, I like most people, work and have a social life—but I this is an addiction. When you truly enjoy it, you get anxious for each reply someone sends like a call after a job interview. You can get depressed or distracted when someone hasn't replied in a few days to a week, because you seem to be checking back every thirty minutes. It effects your sleep, your emotions, and it hurts when your possible partner rejects your ideas. What's worse is that there are hardly any help groups for people who are so lost in the role-plays that they fail to remember real-life obligations.

I'm not saying you have to give it a try or telling you to shun everyone who admits to being part of this community. I am saying that this is one more way for people to make connections and have fun. Some people even fall in love in real life because of their common love for such a thing. It is something a lot of people may not know about; I write what I know. As for those of you who know exactly what I'm talking about, we as a community should be more accepting and willing to teach—or this way of connecting may die out.