To just want to play a game without being harrassed?!

[TallulahBetty]

Fairly new to Words with Friends. Really enjoying so far. Mostly with people I know IRL but have accepted a few challenges from randomers.

However I've received several messages from men I'm playing with, commenting on my picture, generally making advances/lewd comments/being sexist ("your words aren't bad for a girl", being serious), etc etc.

AIBU to be thoroughly depressed? Is there ANYWHERE that certain men will not try to make such comments/behaviour?

...like I'd be well happy, so long as they weren't really old or something. I call bingo-sexism and ageism.
Now Mr Flufflebug, what do you think you are going to get from mn? I know, a lifetime ban

And the really old or something worries me too.
I wonder whether that would include black, disabled, or fat too?
He's a delight

Wow. I have attracted my first MN troll

TallulahBetty, no I meant the "I'm a dude guy" who said that was me, quoting you.

No woman I've ever met would say 'I enjoy playing games online, because, it's really great when men flirt with me'.
The whole 'me too' campaign has not made you think at all?

Wow that was fast... I just sent a report to MNHQ saying "Please ban this tosser. Please. Puppy dog eyes." And lo and behold!

MNHQ, high five.

Right, enough. Go and turn on the news, across America millions of women, young old, whatever, are marching because they are fucking fed up with arse holes who think that they should be grateful, or un offended that they have their lives, wishes, careers, sex lives dictated to because one group has cocks and the other doesn't. Do not dare to fucking assume that anyone ever wants to have unwanted sexual comments made to them.
Now fuck off, it's school tomorrow.

MrrrFluffleBug If you've joined MN in the hope that random women will message you to flirt, then you really are barking up the wrong tree.

Join a dating site.

I'm starting to wonder if this is one of the guys I've had to tell to fuck off and block on WWF

HATE this. I automatically block the chat from men now on chess because of the 'nice profile pic' comments with winky faces i would get - its a picture of me with my son FFS. Would quit the game but it would mess up my stats!!

It has absolutely made my day that some dude has joined MN in the hope that random women will flirt will him..

Has he been living in a hedge? Doesn't he know we only care about parking diagrams and lemon cake (and swearing)

Words with friends has always been awful for this. Maybe they get confused and think it’s tinder? I’ve changed my profile pic to a random photo of a sunset and changed my name to something gender neutral. So now I only get the occasional ‘ru a woman?’ type message.

I have this and also play words with friends. I also have my H and my DS in my picture,(Would hate to think how many more I would get without these!) I think that you can adjust who can see you in settings on the game!

I tend to block chat unless I actually know my opponent in real life.

I don't think the internet is full of predatory men, but I do think predatory men focus their attentions on any medium which affords them the ability to 'talk' to women. I say 'talk', but in effect it's to hound and harass.

I'm tempted to presuppose that many of these men don't talk to women much in real life, or in some cases come from certain nations where male / female interaction is more primitive. I don't suppose all these men adhere to my assumptions, but I suspect a fair few do.

I can understand if you play an online game with a regular opponent over a period of time that a man or woman might be tempted to engage in an actual conversation - seems quite natural to me, but I think most self-aware men would wait for a woman to engage in conversation and see it for what it is - conversation, not seduction!

Sadly, I think it's just the way of the modern internet. The anonymity afforded to people is abused.

I stopped playing Scrabble with randoms because of this. I really only wanted to play a word game.

It's safe to come back now!

I play Lexulous online, which is similar and was constantly getting pestered. Changed my avatar to a male face and guess what? No more hassle.