Imaginary Friends

I knew I was forgetting something! My blog!


Sorry about that. My follow-through on things where I'm not held accountable is shockingly bad. I'll try to do better!


Can I admit something embarrassing? I play World of Warcraft. A lot. I come home and unwind by killing imaginary bad guys and internet dragons. And I love it.


In-game there are these things called guilds - a group of people working for a common goal. There are hundreds of guilds on every server, a guild for any kind of player - casual guilds that just keep up a steady stream of in-game conversation, hard core raiding guilds that raid every night from 7-10 and are constantly working to improve their strategy, and everything in between. 


When I first started playing, I went guildless. Tommy and I play on the same server, so I could have joined his guild - but I wouldn't. I'm ashamed to admit it, but I judged the people that play this game very harshly, and I didn't want to socialize with "freaks" and "nerds." As a fellow nerd, that's pretty hypocritical. But I persisted in my close-minded playing style, struggling along with very little help from other players. 


When I hit level 80 (the highest level at the time), something strange happened. I became friends with someone in-game, Bowen - he helped me out when he saw me struggling, and asked if I would help him too, so I did. We struck up this highly unlikely (to me at least) friendship, and he asked if I would like to join his guild. He told me it was a guild of mostly married couples with some college kids, and that they were a pretty casual social group. I told him I'd think about it.


It wasn't just my bad attitude toward players that had kept me from joining a guild - it was the guilds themselves. I had heard horror stories from Tommy and Matt (his best friend and old roommate) about a guild they were both in - a power mad guild master and drama that never seemed to end. I started playing WoW as stress relief, and to me, dealing with drama didn't seem like it would decrease my amount of stress. 


But Bowen was persistent. I spent a night of game playing with him, his wife, and 2 of the other members of the guild - and it was fun. So much fun that I joined the guild, bringing Tommy in with me. 


We've been really happy in our guild. I'm friends with most of them on facebook, and I'm continually surprised by how supportive they are. 


But. Oh, but. Things have gotten messy.


Our guild master (not Bowen), became frustrated over a number of things, and in a pretty shocking move, kicked everyone who hadn't been playing in a while out of the guild - she even transferred her character to the other side! That left me and Tommy basically alone in the guild.


It was sad. No one was ever on, and we didn't agree with what she'd done - but it was already done. There wasn't really anything to do.


So a month after that, Bowen (who was kicked), signed on and discovered he was guildless. He was....upset. Let's go with upset. They all were. So he formed a new guild.


And there we were - trapped square in the middle. Our guild master had come back too, and told them it was just a big joke - which she honestly thought it was - and asked them to come back. Unanimously, they said no.


So for quite a while, things have been strained. I've been unhappy with the guild - there was an incident with a new member using some really awful hate speech in a guild forum, which deeply hurt me. But even more than that, I missed my friends. I hated how fractious everything had gotten, with everyone fighting all the time.


So after lots of lots of deliberation, we decided to leave. We talked to our guild master last night, and told her we were leaving. She was upset, understandably. And there I was, crying, when we both typed in /gquit.


Its stupid, I know. Its a game, it should be fun, and I wasn't having fun. But I couldn't stop crying. This guild has been a wonderful support for us, and it was almost impossible to leave.


I frequently do things that make me unhappy because I can't stand for other people to be unhappy or not like me. My roommate in college said that I was too gentle of a soul to willingly hurt other people even if they were hurting me.  This was one of the few things I've done that has been all about my happiness.


And I feel horrible about it.


I know it was the right decision for us - we're in Bowen's guild, and its a lot of fun. But I can't get over hurting our old guild master. 


When I first started playing, I referred to guilds as imaginary friends. The anonymity of the internet makes it so easy to pretend that the person you're typing to isn't as real as you are. But my imaginary friends have come to be real friends, and I don't want to hurt them.


So, should you happen to stumble upon this, I'm so, so sorry Julie. I never wanted to hurt your feelings. There was no way to do any of this in a way that didn't hurt someone. I hope you can forgive me. 


I'm sorry about this nerdy post. But this isn't the kind of thing I can talk to people about, and I needed to talk (write?) it out.