Couples who play WoW together is not an uncommon thing. I can think of at least a few in every guild I’ve been in thus far, and the combinations I’ve encountered are endless: married couples, engaged couples, boyfriend/girlfriend, boyfriend/boyfriend, couples who actually met each other in game, couples who play on entirely different factions and servers from each other… yeah, I can think of good friends who fall into each of those categories.

Still, not everyone who is currently involved in a relationship has a significant other who plays, and I’ve seen various opinions on this ranging from “Aaagh I wish my girlfriend played!” to “I’m so glad my boyfriend doesn’t play!” and everything in between. What’s it really like, though?

Well obviously this differs from couple to couple, but lemme tell you my story and what I’ve learned.

As of this fall, The Boy and I will have been together for five years. …huh. Now that I think about it we started dating the month WoW came out. o.O Anyways, neither of played at first. Most of our friends did, though, and eventually one of them talked us into trying it out a couple years later. Thus it was that we began our journeys through Azeroth on the same day. Those were the days. Once we figured out how to be in the same area as each other, we started questing together frequently, although we played by ourselves as well. By the time we hit level 45ish we’d encountered most of the little group of people that would become our collective friends-base, and we started doing instances and stuff too.

I got to level 58 before he did, but waited several hours to go through the Dark Portal so the two of us could go through it together. I also hit 70 a few days before he did– though he would riposte several months later by getting to 80 a few days before me (it’s not my fault I can’t do what he does and scoop up every quest in the zone and do them all and turn them all in within a few hours /grumble).

We’ve done a lot together; raiding, heroics, several quests, the occasional battleground. Until recently we were always in the same guild. Suffice to say, we’ve shared a lot of experiences in this game.

It has, of course, not always been a bed of roses. Let’s talk about scheduling issues, for one. I mostly work afternoons and evenings at the moment, whereas The Boy attends school and does his equivalent stuff during the day. It’s difficult enough to sneak in time with each other with that sort of schedule, but let me take you back to a rather unpleasant period earlier this year where we were raiding on different nights. He was raiding Naxx on Saturday because that was the best time for him, but I work most Saturdays, so I found myself doing my raiding on Fridays (and occasionally Sundays as well).

While we were both understanding about this issue, it was hard as well. Hard enough that it discouraged me from raiding for a long time, because as much as I love raiding– I didn’t like that I was doing it on one of the rare nights where I could be spending time with The Boy. Ya know?

It didn’t help that The Boy was doing it with all my friends and guildies and they would just breeze right through Naxx in a couple hours, whereas I was doing it with a group of unknown faces and we would struggle on bosses that should’ve been easy. After any of The Boy’s Naxx clears I’d inevitably find out a bunch of hunter gear had dropped. I was super jealous of The Boy at that point, and I think it caused some tension. Oh, don’t get me wrong– I came to really love my impromptu little raid group, and it was quite a rush when our ragtag fellowship finally got to a point where we were breezing through Naxx too, and chalking up a lot of achievements in the process. But in the beginning, it was hard.

Here’s another thing I always say is difficult about having a significant other who plays: Ever had those days where one person just wants to chatter on and on about WoW and the other person… doesn’t? I dunno, I think I’ve been on both sides of that coin– I think the both of us have.

But as difficult as it is sometimes… on the other hand, it’s so nice to have a built-in support system. In a world where only a few people out there would understand all the gaming jargon you’re spewing at them… who else but your best friend and partner to babble it all to? Who else but that shoulder to cry on when your PuG raid is terrible or when there’s weird guild drama going on? Who else to send funny forum links and WoW-related YouTube movies to? Who else to read Warcraft novels with and make horrible jokes with at the expense of various lore characters? Who else isn’t going to inwardly laugh or think you’re crazy when something in game moves you to tears? Who else understands?

Awesome to have that person right there, lemme tell ya. It’s also awesome to have a partner that is willing to try out new things like using this great app-controlled vibrator in the bedroom.

Oh, and honestly, I’m such an addiction-driven soul that without having someone there to balance me out– someone to say “Let’s go watch House” sometimes or recommend me new Star Wars books to read– I’d probably have really crashed and burned in-game by now. I might be raiding more and have shinier gear, but the tradeoff wouldn’t be worth it.

The Boy quit playing WoW a little while ago; his subscription ran out and he hasn’t resubscribed. He may or may not be back. Either way, he lets me go off and feed my hunger for raiding (or alt’ing) when I need to and he is more supportive of my blogging than anyone else I know. Oh, and he laughs at my “What does Kel’Thuzad eat between meals? SNAXX!” joke.

So, while having a significant other who plays is not always as easy and fun as it might look on the outset…

…in the end, it’s worked out pretty well, I think.

DON’T WORRY, I’M NEVER GOING TO BE ALL SAPPY AGAIN! COME BACK! /frantically waves audience back D=