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No Love for Straight Women


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22 hours ago, Nerdessence said:

 

It probably was, Khaidu. I always try to make plain-looking characters in normal to frumpy clothing. I also never learned the art of flirtation (IC or OOC). My few very mild attempts garnered confused responses or the character didn't pick up on it. 

 

I tend to be a passive female, waiting on male initiation, so that probably has something to do with it as well. Again, that's my taste and personality at play.

 

Speaking only for myself, but the first part there is a huge plus to me. So many go out of their way to make their character as sexy as possible, try to be the center of attention... it's the ones who do the opposite that often intrigue me. I can't help but think that there is probably someone very interesting under there. I've had a lot of good RP happen just because I said "hello" to the shy one.

 

As for the second part... there's nothing wrong with playing a passive character, but as you've noticed it can make it a challenge to get into RP. I suggest going to places where there is RP, and send out emotes describing what your character is doing (even if it's basically nothing), so at least something is popping up in people's chat boxes. Someone may notice. The only other option I can think of is transfer to a server with more roleplayers.

Edited by Tregarde
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22 hours ago, Nerdessence said:

 

It probably was, Khaidu. I always try to make plain-looking characters in normal to frumpy clothing. I also never learned the art of flirtation (IC or OOC). My few very mild attempts garnered confused responses or the character didn't pick up on it. 

 

I tend to be a passive female, waiting on male initiation, so that probably has something to do with it as well. Again, that's my taste and personality at play.


Having a passive character doesn't necessarily mean you have to be so OOCly. You can have a character who is more reserved and just be firing off OOC attempts at communication left and right. Once you and someone else decide to try RPing, this is where a good plot hook comes in. If you both decide "Yeah, they can meet for a drink." and your reserved character is too busy not realizing what is going on or is playing coy then...Welp.

In my experience, if you use a boring hook you have a much higher chance of getting boring RP that lacks longevity and you're right back into the 'Looking for Contacts' bin. Look for similarities in the characters. Are they both adventurers? Scholars? Dungeon delvers? Bountry hunters? Maybe they both really hate the void and meet hunting the same void creature. Form a plot around it. Have enemies, do some combat. GO OUTSIDE. Have your characters put some boots on, run around in the woods, get dirty. A lot of the best relationships develop out of conflict, don't shy away from that either.

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I can't recognize this problem. I play a straight midlander, and her relationship has happened organically without me even putting thought as to specifically looking for romance for her. She has had multiple people, even women, advance on her over time - and of course, because she's a healer, she gets a lot of the "Ohi sexy nurse rawrrrrr ;)" comments. I have to assume that the people making them are either straight or bisexual/other sexuality that makes them consider a straight woman as a potential. 
 

As others have suggested, I think there's more to it and uh, I don't know, maybe don't focus on it too much? Just like with popularity, the illuminati and "Oh my god EVERYONE has my hairstyle all of a sudden???", you will see a lot more of the things you are focusing on. I know some like to have romance as a central focus-point for their characters but yeah, I just don't think that's entirely healthy. If anything I've noticed that people turn on their heels and run as soon as someone mentions they're specifically looking for romance for their character, because it can be a bit of a red flag that warns of potential IC/OOC bleeding down the line, or at least it would be much more risky than in other areas of roleplay.

 

Two gil in a box. 

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41 minutes ago, Maril said:

As others have suggested, I think there's more to it and uh, I don't know, maybe don't focus on it too much? Just like with popularity, the illuminati and "Oh my god EVERYONE has my hairstyle all of a sudden???", you will see a lot more of the things you are focusing on. I know some like to have romance as a central focus-point for their characters but yeah, I just don't think that's entirely healthy. If anything I've noticed that people turn on their heels and run as soon as someone mentions they're specifically looking for romance for their character, because it can be a bit of a red flag that warns of potential IC/OOC bleeding down the line, or at least it would be much more risky than in other areas of roleplay.

 

Along with most of the other posts in the thread, both of the points here hit the nail pretty hard on the head. For example, I personally struggle too much trying to find people willing to RP over Discord, etc. with my character to even care about romance. I do too many scheduled things to sit down and RP in game for several hours unless it's planned well in advanced so that's the problem I've always focused on. The handful of characters my character has interacted with have strangely all been male though not all of them straight. So even though nobody has shown any romantic interest in my character, I can strangely say that one of the problems I personally have is that no female characters want to be friends with my straight female character.

Edited by Mermaid
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All good points.

 

Honestly, after all of this, I’ve decided to give up on the idea for now and remember the person who knows my tastes and wants the best and is always there for me.  In a way, this has made me appreciate his writing all the more. Also, our anniversary was this week, so I’m feeling squishy.

 

Good luck to the singletons out there!

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I haven't read through every post in the thread, but I did skim them all, and I didn't see my personal issue addressed yet, so I'll offer my input on the situation.

 

To set the stage, I am a straight male IRL, but I typically play either lesbian or bisexual females in RP in a lot of MMOs for one simple fact.  Most MMOs know their market and tend to (not always, but tend to) offer more and/or better options for female character models.

 

Staying focused on FFXIV, for example, I am willing to play characters from the following list of options;

 

Female Midlanders, Highlanders, Elezen, Miqo'te, Au Ra, or Lallafell.  Basically, female anything except for Roegadyn.  In contrast, Midlanders are the only male models that I will play for sure, with male Miqo'te and Au Ra being things that I will consider if, and only if, it is with the intent of building a story with someone who I already know OOC and consider a good friend.

 

Even though I am a straight male, I am drawn more to female characters because I just don't like the designs of the male character models in the game.  I doubt very highly that I am the only one in that possition.

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On 6/16/2018 at 4:06 PM, Nerdessence said:

All good points.

 

Honestly, after all of this, I’ve decided to give up on the idea for now and remember the person who knows my tastes and wants the best and is always there for me.  In a way, this has made me appreciate his writing all the more. Also, our anniversary was this week, so I’m feeling squishy.

 

Good luck to the singletons out there!


Happy anniversary!

But no, we straight fellas exist. Though some of us also follow the mentality of "Where story goes." My main just, for example, dabbled outside of the strictly female gender for a bit before finding himself single. That said, I'm glad you found your answers in this, and from the other singletons good luck in the future :)

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10 hours ago, Vhah said:


Happy anniversary!

 

Thanks. The past thirteen years have been the best of my life.

 

And given that, I’ve distanced myself from FFXIV. It’s evident that solo play just isn’t going to work for me and if I’m going to play with him, we might as well build out our characters on Brynhildr. So, I’m taking a small vacation from the game and have deleted my Mateus characters. Sadly, it’s just not a scene that works for me.

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Seems OP is no longer looking for a solution but for anyone else on Balmung know there is romance out there for straight women (and men). I've met many women with husbands. Met one pregnant just last evening so it's happening. 

 

I always recommend RPers take the time to meet a wide variety of characters. Form friendships. See where they go. Sure you'll run into gay men. These gay men likely have contacts and friends. Maybe a hot brother who's straight. You never know who you'll meet by chance.

 

I have characters of all preferances and genders and it doesn't really matter what my irl sexuality entails. I've got nothing to do with the romance imho, I'm just the narrator.

Edited by Bahati
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My two pennies on the issue at hand, 


   I've seen a lot of bi/pan characters, probably more so than I have straight characters. But those orientations include attraction to men and women. I think widening your parameters to include bisexual and pansexual characters might go a long way into getting that mushy romance RP. I say this as someone who plays a female bi character, and who isn't engaged in any romance RP. Relationships, especially romances, take time to really blossom. You might feel like you're getting nowhere and might OOCly ship your characters, but just think of it as character development. It's a journey, and the romance is the happy end.
  I also agree with SQUAWK, in that it might also be somewhat to do with your approach. Having a shy wallflower character is fine, and some people really gravitate towards that, but it means that OOCly you might have to be a bit more proactive in plotting stuff with your RP partner. It is a little meta-gamey, but I've found that if they also have a sense of where you want things to be going (and provided that they agree of course) then you can both work on getting your characters there. I understand that not everyone is super confident with OOC communication, especially suggesting something like a romance, but it does help and sometimes in life you just have to take a leap of faith. 
  
It's a long road OP, I know. But the journey can be just as fun as the end!

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I've been following this thread for awhile and lurking over the responses.  I understand some of the frustrations you might be experiencing but not all since my RP focus is pretty much never on romance so I tend to not notice as much when it's lacking in my character's development.  That said I've noticed some definite variances in the characters I play not just in who they attract for "potential romances" but also in the nature of the people who message me OOC.  This is by no means the sum of what everyone is, it's just generalizations over many years.

 

My Female Roegadyn, who is a hetero tomboy gets 0 approaches from men and only the very rare oddball whisper of the explicit sort usually from some kinkster who gets politely declined. I've occasionallhad female Miqo'te or Au Ra show great interest in her and I've done a few tongue-in-cheek humorous RP's where she gets hit on by a gender she's not "into" but I've never had anyone be OOCly toxic towards her.  She's had pretty much 0 canon romance but rather services as more of a big-sister protector for everyone else.

 

My Miqo'te, I've had several, is a mixed bag based on their name and attire.  For the characters that are more outgoing and show a bit of skin they're treated like catgirls.  People are either really interested or really dismissive based on their general opinion of "catgirls".  I get the most sexual-charged off-hand whispers on my Miqo'te at times completely disregarding my character, my search tag, anything.  The only race I've had more issues with people being "dismissive" of my character is my lalafell.  The exception to this is N'Kara Shaihl who is a mean, creepy figure that tends to dress conservatively and pretty much nobody tries to get with her.  It'd be like trying to bed one of those violent strays that just want to claw your eyes out.  

 

My Lalafell was loved by some for his personality but hated by others for being "a lalafell".  I won't get into my soap box of how racist and prejudice I find people who dismiss a character out of hand for its race or appearance.  My Lala is dead now but I have a lot of friends who play lalafell and they typically get the worst of it in terms of bad behavior towards them and it seems that a lot of the taboo explicit fetishes get targeted at them.

 

My Hyur like the Miqo'te get a mixed bag based on appearance and demeanor.

 

Bottom line I take away from all my experiences is...

- The way you dress matters because people often see "hookup" before "romance"

- How you meet matters, because Quicksand seems to be more for the "hookups"

- How engaging and interesting your character is matters.  If you're outgoing and walkup to more people you're more likely to net some sort of solid interaction.

 

Everyone is shy.  Everyone is anxious about new contacts.  Everyone feels alone.

Just gotta break the metric and do something different.

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8 hours ago, Evaleigh said:

My Female Roegadyn, who is a hetero tomboy gets 0 approaches from men and only the very rare oddball whisper of the explicit sort usually from some kinkster who gets politely declined. I've occasionallhad female Miqo'te or Au Ra show great interest in her and I've done a few tongue-in-cheek humorous RP's where she gets hit on by a gender she's not "into" but I've never had anyone be OOCly toxic towards her.  She's had pretty much 0 canon romance but rather services as more of a big-sister protector for everyone else.

 

Femroes in general need more love. My toon dated a couple of female roegadyn across the past two years and even had emotional moments with one of them. Was always fun, especially the adventuring/dungeoneering bits.

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Funny story about romance and the Roe.

 

I put her up for a blind date auction for Valentoines once and the guy who "won" her took one look at her and was like  "Uhhhhhh.... no"

 

I found it hilarious but it's also kinda sad.  It really does reflect reality where people outside of the perceived "ideal" are the ones who get rejected more often than not.

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1 hour ago, Evaleigh said:

Funny story about romance and the Roe.

 

I put her up for a blind date auction for Valentoines once and the guy who "won" her took one look at her and was like  "Uhhhhhh.... no"

 

I found it hilarious but it's also kinda sad.  It really does reflect reality where people outside of the perceived "ideal" are the ones who get rejected more often than not.

 

Let's be real, for most race/gender combos there's 1-2 faces that are considered the attractive options. With Roes though I'm pretty sure they all have unconventional features like flatish noses and such. That's part of the fun with them. What weirdly specific thing was that person expecting? O.o

 

I knew what I what I was getting into when I made a female Au Ra so I actually tried to make her sort of odd looking. The goal was to make people do a double take, think she's kinda weird looking at first before they get used to it. Maybe they find her attractive after that or maybe she actually is their type. I didn't want to attract the kind of RPers that only look to hookup with cute characters but I had to be able to stare at my character for hours too. I stopped being a recluse today and went to Kugane to do my AST quests where I got a whisper from someone saying they liked my look. I was just wearing dungeon gear, a full matching set and one thematic to the area, but still it was nothing special. I admittedly love that set myself but I think that recolor is terrible for my character's coloration. I genuinely wonder if someone would go out of their way to send a whisper over a leveling dungeon set for a male character or "unattractive" race but who knows.

Edited by Mermaid
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On 6/22/2018 at 10:25 AM, Evaleigh said:

 

My Lalafell was loved by some for his personality but hated by others for being "a lalafell".  I won't get into my soap box of how racist and prejudice I find people who dismiss a character out of hand for its race or appearance.  My Lala is dead now but I have a lot of friends who play lalafell and they typically get the worst of it in terms of bad behavior towards them and it seems that a lot of the taboo explicit fetishes get targeted at them.

Hahaha, we're an endangered species, it comes with the territory of being uncommon. I don't mind it though. People being dismissive is common, but I've worked hard to establish plenty of RP partnerships where that isn't the case.

 

I rolled this race to minimize dirty tells, but they definitely have happened. Usually people don't bother me once I politely decline them. 


Romance RP isn't particularly important to my writing, and I have no interest in ERP,  but I do think being part of the less common races, Roe and Lala, means that finding players interested in romance RP is going to be uncommon. I imagine it's because a.) most people can't detach from romance RP enough to play a pairing that they themselves wouldn't find attractive, and b.) most people want ERP, and would feel romance RP without ERP scenes would be "a waste." Refer to a.) There's just generally a ton of blending in romance RP and people don't notice characters that aren't attractive to them personally even when their character would. 

That being said, it isn't a particularly big deal to me because traditionally my RP characters have more important things to do than date. Typically they see romantic entanglement as undesirable because they lead dangerous lives, and feel getting into a relationship or, god forbid, marrying someone would be tremendously cruel and irresponsible. 

 

Edited by Caspar
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On 6/16/2018 at 4:37 PM, Mermaid said:

 

Along with most of the other posts in the thread, both of the points here hit the nail pretty hard on the head. For example, I personally struggle too much trying to find people willing to RP over Discord, etc. with my character to even care about romance. I do too many scheduled things to sit down and RP in game for several hours unless it's planned well in advanced so that's the problem I've always focused on. The handful of characters my character has interacted with have strangely all been male though not all of them straight. So even though nobody has shown any romantic interest in my character, I can strangely say that one of the problems I personally have is that no female characters want to be friends with my straight female character.

 

I know I'm a little late to the party but I wanted to weigh in here. I play a female character that is for the most part, interested in exploring romantic relationships with other females. 

 

If I see a female character that I know is hetero, I'm often reluctant to approach because I'm afraid that their character will assume my character is just trying to get in her pants. That of course is of no fault of the other player but of my own shortcomings. However, I'm truly trying to overcome this.

 

If you're interested (and on Balmung),  I'm sure my character would be love to be friends with yours (or anyone else'sfor that matter)!

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On 6/28/2018 at 9:29 AM, Jenilee said:

 

I know I'm a little late to the party but I wanted to weigh in here. I play a female character that is for the most part, interested in exploring romantic relationships with other females. 

 

If I see a female character that I know is hetero, I'm often reluctant to approach because I'm afraid that their character will assume my character is just trying to get in her pants. That of course is of no fault of the other player but of my own shortcomings. However, I'm truly trying to overcome this.

 

If you're interested (and on Balmung),  I'm sure my character would be love to be friends with yours (or anyone else'sfor that matter)!

 

I won't deny having similar thoughts about both angles. "This person with a female character is approaching me. If we end up RPing a lot are they going to want to turn it into a relationship?" and "If I approach this female character are they going to think I'm interested in romance down the line?" The only reason I'll both to list my character sexuality is to hopefully avoid awkward situations down the line. I 100% understand and empathize with the problem.

 

I am on Balmung but unfortunately my availability for in-game RP is extremely limited and unpredictable. x.x

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  • 3 months later...

Here I thought I'd never see a topic like this considering the amount of Futas parading themselves all over Balmung's QS. I'm pretty sure there's plenty of guys who enjoy female company or at the very least bisexual guys that swing both ways, you just have to approach one of them and start a nice conversation.

I'm aware some might be the ones approaching you with comments like "hey there bb u want sum fuk" in the most crude and cringy way possible (I know, I have been approached like that with my female characters) but there's always good roleplayers that make the perseverance worth it. 

 

 

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Pretty much echoing the sentiments I've already seen here. Aside from that I've also noticed a lot of straight guys either aren't into romance rp as deeply as female players or prefer to...have more open options. My own rp partner whose a straight dude has often said they never were really into long term exclusive romance rps  and while we both enjoy our ship very much, even after two years, I know he enjoys a mix of different types of rp rather then straight up romance all the time or our characters being joined at the hip. I think it's just a matter of time and patience and also realising some guys just aren't into romance rp as much as us girls.

Edited by Kasumi Gakunin
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  • 3 weeks later...

I haven't ever noticed an issue. When my first main was single, she has quite a few suitors and my other character had a couple. That said, this was years ago, I haven't been open for shipping in quite some time. These ladies weren't flirtatious or really even all that outgoing. At the time elezens were on the rare side, so maybe that was part of the reason she generated so much interest? I am not sure. 

 

I can tell you that I was more focused on story driven plots than romance and the romance aspect just kind of fell into place there. 

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  • 2 months later...

Well, first off let me say that I only transfered to Mateus this weekend so I'm still overwhelmed by the scene.  I've made so many friends just due do my bard performances (rl musician).

That being said, to get back to the discussion at hand:  I am a 100% straight male, married 20+ years, and have been playing mmorpgs since Everquest and Asheron's Call.

In FF I play female, and my character is interested in both in-game genders. 

 

As to the original poster, we are out there.  I personally have just never liked playing male characters because going all the way back to the dawn of the genre, male models have been blocky, overly muscly slabs of meat,  whereas female models have always received much more detail and diversity from the devs.  

FF XIV has really created some great male models though.  But If I'm going to spend hundreds of hours playing, looking at my char, why not choose something pleasing?

 

Edited by Tattersail
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You're definitely not the only person who has noticed this. My (IRL) wife has talked to me about it before in her experiences of RPing on Mateus, Balmung, and even other games. I can't say why there's a relative lack of straight male characters compared to other orientations and genders (that question would require a lot of study and resources to answer), but I agree that's the way it is. Doesn't mean there's no straight male characters, and I don't think it has anything to do with harassment, etc.

 

I bet it's just a personal preference; not enough people want to play them for some reason. In FFXIV it might have something to do with how underwhelming a lot of them look. Au Ra hips make me cringe, highlanders don't have eye brows and some of them look like total goons, midlanders come off as far too young, no races have that many beard options, etc.

 

For what it's worth, I'm a relatively straight guy that pretty much only plays straight male characters, so we do exist.

Edited by Ezenzakhialga
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