Pretending to be a girl online, feeling depress, lost & lonely....?

[Tony]

I feel I need to get this out of my chest. It all begun a year ago when I started to make a twitter account to talk to other people about TV shows & animes who has the same interest & hobbies. As a guy, no one really talked to me, so I pretended to be a girl. It didn't take long for lots of people to start talking to me. Being alone & suffering depression my whole life, I quite enjoyed the new found attention. I'm socially awkward, & find it hard to talk to people in real life let alone making friends. I feel that being online is the only escape for me, & to feel accepted even though I'm pretending to be a girl. It's the only way I can freely express myself without being judged. :/

Not long after I met these two girls. One is from German & the other is from Switzerland. All three of us met via twitter & started talking a lot, due to the same interest & hobbies we've shared. I even made a facebook account to join them to talk more via facebook inbox. I told them that I was a hairdresser, I used a random picture of a really attractive girl with purple hair I found on the net, & use that picture as the identity of my online girl persona. It's been one year already, & I have grown really closed to them. They have always been there for, listening to my stories and making me laugh, smile, & bring me a joy of friendship that I haven't experienced in a really long time. I really care & love them as friends. But at the same time I feel very guilty & awful lying to them about my identity. It's eating me up deeply in the inside, but I cannot bring myself to tell them the truth. They have trusted me so much to open up about their personal life. As a guy, they would never tell me such things or open up. It's gotten to the point where I can't even function normal without them. I truly care for them & don't want to hurt their feelings in any way. i don't want to leave them. I wish I could be the friend the great girl they think I am. >_<

I don't know what to do anymore :/

[Lily]

If it were me I'd cut off all connections with them because I'm a pussy wimp. Even this account is fake, but i am a girl.

Btw, its possible they aren't as they appear too. They could be (just possible) some kinda Internet wierdos trying to hit on girls.

But it seems kinda unlikely, so as a girl, it would be really awkward if one of my online friends was lying about gender. But after that I think it'd get better. They might be weirded out and cut you off but it depends on them. If they are shy people they are more likely to accept you. Also, how are they around guys? I find it hard to talk to guys... You could make another account as yourself, a guy, and introduce guy you to them as girl you as your brother. If they take it well and end up liking guy you, you could introduce girl you as being guy you and your secrets out.

Not sure that would work, us girls are like nuclear unstable bombs and really hard to predict because we are so different.

But if you are a guy, and your girl fits you better, that's who you are. You should be proud of everything you have. Confidence will get you to where you want to be.

[Luong]

Have you ever considered that this might be the root cause of your depression? Think of it I'm my perspective right now; have you ever considered that you don't want to move on and become more outgoing because of your thinking towards your alter-ego?

Personally, I feel like you don't want to go out and do something productive because you feel like its easier for you to depend on your false identity; well, if my judgement is correct and you don't want to do anything but that because you find it easier, I'll have to break it to you, life's not easy. Consider this, are they truly friends with you, or you alter-ego? Are you truly content or is this a placebo? The answer is obvious. With that, are you attracting males or females, and are they "friends" with you, or only care for you because of the fact that they know you as a female?

I'm truly sorry that I cannot break it to you in a gentler way, but its imminent. You have to realize that this collective guilt is the cause of this depression and there's no way to stop it besides giving it up and moving on.

I always like to end things in an optimistic view so I'll say this. If you have the ability to talk to all of those people, why are you saying that you're socially awkward? You know what to say and do, just break out of your bubble and do it...

[Rachael]

That is quite a situation you got yourself into...and the reason I'm careful about who I talk to online. OnO

But seriously, you say you don't want to hurt them, right? You're hurting them right now by not telling them the truth. You can't have a true friendship when they think you're someone you're not. I get what you're saying about loving the attention it got you, but that really is selfish, man. Those girls put their trust in you and openly shared those things, and you're apparently not doing the same.

This is going to be like ripping off a band-aid, because you need to do it quickly and it'll hurt a lot less in the long run to have it over with, because guilt is not fun.

I don't know these girls, so I have no idea if they'll forgive you, but just remember that they're the victims in this situation and need to be told the truth. You can have your excuses of being depressed and all, but that doesn't give you a free pass to lie (and letting it drag out that long) to sweet girls.

Maybe this just needs to be a lesson to you about staying honest. Dishonesty only heaps trouble.

I'm not trying to be harsh, but you're asking for help and I'm just trying to lay this whole thing out honestly.

[GirlOnFire]

It'd be best for everyone if you told them. These girls are too close to you to just throw the friendship away JUST because your a guy! Yeah, they might be a little mad,but they'll also be accepting because of how great of a friend you are. You won't lose them, I promise. I know how it feels to feel alone and that nobody accepts you, and I also know what it's like to have a good time with people that accept you for you, and that you don't want to go back to being alone after that feeling, but if things go bad, give it some time. If they don't want to talk to you after that then find some new friends. Even if they remain your friends it'd be good anyways to not rely 100% on your online friends to be the only people that you can be yourself with, because they won't be there for you your whole life. I don't know who told me this but it's a quote and it goes like this: Doing what you're uncomfortable with is the only way you grow. Sorry, this answers might not make sense but I'm bad at words. I hope it all works out