Ironically enough, Flippage didn't have the same malicious intent that the Lineage community had come to expect from "in-game cross dressers." Stereotypically, when a male pretended to be a female, it was an attempt to earn free items from potential suitors. This was probably one of Flippage's greatest camouflages: Here she was, helping out a low level character that had nothing to give her. What motivation could she have?
Indeed, Septonian couldn't imagine why Flippage wouldn't be a girl. "All along, I kept [asking] myself, 'Why would she be lying about it, if I'm the one gaining from it?' In these types of relationships, it's usually the person who's making a profit who's playing the girl-who-needs-stuff role ... but here [she was] spending time with a lowbie, even giving him money and items."
Most men playing women don't do it as a joke or for an interesting experience. They do it to exploit the different ways that males and females are treated on the 'net. Septonian was lucky: Newbie males don't often receive help in the game world, while those perceived as females are immediately mentored by higher level males. Naming yourself "xXCuteLoveXx" or playing a female avatar promotes kinder treatment, and taking on "feminine" mannerisms - lots of giggling, anime faces, emotional responses, etc. - can earn you free items or a spot in a prestigious blood pledge.
But why would women be treated differently than men in a videogame? Sexual favoritism in the real world is usually due to sexual undertones exhibited by either party, but online benefactors rarely meet those they help. With thousands of miles and the anonymity of the internet separating benefactors from their benefices, what drives guys to shower lower-level players with items?
Perhaps those real-world undertones still have an effect inside the game. Although not the dominant member of the give-receive pair, Septonian hoped to take his relationship with Flippage to the next level.
Though Flippage sent Septonian pictures and gave him her phone number, she would never join him on live web-cam chat and never answered her phone. Septonian had plans to eventually visit Flippage, though nothing immediate; "Considering I had never seen 'her' on a live webcam, or even chatted with 'her' on phone or voice chat, I can say I was still pretty far from a visit.
"I guess he was waiting for a girl to be at his house [before he told] me to call him, so he'd have an accomplice," Septonian muses years later.
Flippage's ruse came to a close when an anonymous source remarked that "real-life Flippage" looked exactly like another high-profile 'net female, "cyberchiq." With the help of Google, it didn't take Septonian long before he found the real person in Flippage's pictures, whom he even contacted via email (and perhaps flirted with, just a little).
"I remember my blood pressure rising around the time he admitted [he was a male in real life]," Septonian told me. "We were walking around Giran and I was ... nervous waiting for the truth to come out." Once Flippage admitted it, Septonian waited for Flippage to log off and then stripped his characters of all their possessions, putting the finishing touches on the destruction of a friendship.
