Virtual cross-dressing

I was a woman before the revolution. I mean, I still am a woman, but only in the physical world. Most people see me as a man. With how advanced voice modification software has gotten, it’s nearly impossible to tell the true gender of somebody nowadays if you’re plugged in. I have been outed a couple times by people in AR, but they were outside of my social circles so they couldn’t do any harm. The only way they were able to tell was by subtle social clues like me twirling my hair that doesn’t exist or sitting with my legs crossed a specific way. This was quite a long time ago, so I’ve gotten much better at being a man. It still sounds really weird to hear myself say that. Before the revolution, I was very much a feminist. Not only in college, where most girls seem to be at least a little bit feminist, but for a couple years after I wrote a little bit online about issues women face and even went to a few events that I was invited to on Facebook. Nothing compared to some women, but I was still involved. If any of my friends back then knew I was living my life as a man .. I’m not sure what they would say.

I didn’t really plan this. Right after the revolution happened, I saw a job opening for a paralegal position in cyber space. I sent in my resume and got an interview. While trying on virtual outfits for the interview, I saw the option at the top for male/female. I clicked “male” and I didn’t look half bad as a man! The thought popped in my head that I could interview as a man if I wanted to, and I was actually quite interested in the idea. It was an opportunity to see whether men really did treat women as differently as I believed. I was lucky that my name is Sam, and there’s otheraise nothing on my resume to suggest my gender. So I went in and killed the interview and got the job!

I spent about a week working as a man and was writing up a really good article about it. Finally a woman could literally experience what it’s like to be a man! I was already imagining all of the websites that would share it and how proud all of my friends would be. I was watching the view count in my head climb and climb, with each big share and link giving it an extra spike in the three dimensional graph. But I wanted it to be perfect, so I kept making modifications to it every day and suddenly it was two weeks later, and I was still living as a man. And the crazy thing was that I was starting to enjoy it. I was enjoying not being stared at when I walked past. I was enjoying having normal conversations with men, even if they were sometimes about the game last night or the blonde that just walked by. I was enjoying the praise my boss was giving me on a daily basis, and the hints about a promotion. I was enjoying being approached by men for my opinion on a subject instead of to be asked out for drinks.

So, I kind of just let this life become my own.