I agree with 2scents, yitay and Syag. It occurred to me at a certain point that I shouldn’t have told anyone my gender, especially since everyone thought I was a boy, so I could have left it at that.
That being said, everyone has to make their own cheshbonos just like they do in “real life”. The problem is when people have completely different standards (or no standards) for online as opposed to “real life”.
Personally, smileys don’t bother me (depending on the context, although I could see why some might not like it), but I don’t like ;)’s. That’s just my personal opinion.