M or F?

By Evany Thomas

In chat rooms everywhere people exchange the most intimate details. But how
do you know when they're telling the truth? Here's a guide for those moments
when you simply must know who, or what, you're talking to.

As a forum for meeting potential mates, the chat room is the ultimate in
blind dating. Curiosity about the identities of fellow mad chatters is
unavoidable — though not knowing for sure who you're "talking" to is one of
the reasons it's so thrilling. I mean, the person on the receiving end of
your 70 double entendres per minute could be anyone, and so can you ("Oh, I
gave up modeling to train organ-grinder monkeys"). It's just like "Fantasy
Island"!

But some people just have to know who's what. Spend any time cyberflirting,
and it's only a matter of time before someone asks you that question: "M or
F?"

If you're one of these can't-leave-the-presents-wrapped-until-Christmas
types, then there are a few things you can try to find out whether the person
that's got you logging on 40 times a day is an "innie" or an "outtie." It's a
boy! No wait … It's a girl!

Say you're a woman looking for a bona fide male specimen. Certain
Y-chromosome-detecting questions might solve the mystery. "Bachelor Number
One, describe to me, in loving detail, how you shave away two-day stubble."
Other possibilities: "Recite the Boy Scout Oath." "Explain Dungeons and
Dragons" or "What's up with football?"

If you're trying to find out if someone's 101 percent woman, ask "What do you
call makeup that you use on eyelashes?" Men rarely know the meaning of the
word "mascara." But watch out! If their gender-bending ways go beyond the
Net, they might be savvy in the ways of Great Lash (which would really throw
a wrench in your quiz). So if (s)he makes it past the mascara level, go for
the big guns: the fail-safe, "What's the green color mean in tamponese?" Few
men know their slender-regulars from their supers.

Asking only man/woman-would-know queries seems like a perfect way to strain
out undesirables, like oh-so-much dolphin from tuna. Unfortunately, there's a
Catch-22: If I, as a woman, know the answer to the questions that only men
should know, then the test is invalid. If I don't know the answer to the
question, Mr(Ms). Right could serve up an answer that sounds correct, but is
really nothing but bull (or perhaps cow?). And a smooth-talking liar, male or
female, is the last thing you want.

You could run the answers by a trusted male friend who would, in theory, know
whether or not the answers were sufficiently manly. But even then you'd never
be totally sure. My boyfriend, when asked these man-detector Qs, didn't know
his D'n'D from his third down. Yet he's all man. Unfortunately, gender roles
in the '90s don't fall into neat, easy-to-define categories. Men tear up
during "Forest Gump." Women get pumped playing paintball.

The only way to make sure is with videoconference, where you can see live
footage of the person in question. Of course if you're paranoid like me, you
could imagine the person hiring an actor to play the part (a la Cyrano). Then
again, (s)he could simply be a very good cross dresser, which you could
probably "expose" if you asked the right questions. But then you're getting
into a whole new chat genre (and the person might decide your untrusting ways
border on the psychotic and ditch you).

Which leads us to the crux of the matter. You can never be totally sure about
anyone. At a certain point, you just have to trust that people aren't lyin'
when they oughta be truthin' and hope for the best. That's a fact of life,
and not just life on the Internet (or similarly mysterious personal ads or
phone sex).

I'm talking about the way things are in the "real" world. How many times have
you met someone standing, say, in the 10-items-or-less lane, and thought they
were the cat's purr. Then a few days, weeks, or (shudder) years later you
realized that they were a total fraud, sham, $3 bill phony? (Did anyone see
"Taxi Driver"? Grow up with "Lola" by the Kinks?) Sure, a friend of mine met
her husband online and three months into the marriage she found out he was —
ta-da! — an abusive drug addict. But I've also met some great, long-term,
real-life friends over the Internet. Off or online, life's a piñata: you
blindly whack away at it and hope things bust open to reveal money, prizes
and Sweet Tarts (and not some freaky, stale candy from 1972).

Depressing but true, sometimes the "pinata" disappoints. But, again, either
you find a way to put back on the blindfold and trust again, or you lock all
your doors and windows and Miss Havisham your life away. Of course, that kind
of hermit crabbiness doesn't necessarily stand in the way of the occasional
online affair or three.

If you never meet the e-person in the flesh (so to speak), then it doesn't
matter who, or even what, "it" is — just as long as it's not underage, which
is a different matter entirely. Good luck!

Evany Thomas is senior editor for Webmonkey, and she's 100 percent woman.