Speak Out with Your Geek Out: Oh, WoW

I revealed in yesterday’s post that I’ve essentially been living a secret life – a life of pure, unadulterated geekiness that I don’t talk about around non-geeks. Well, that’s not entirely true. You see, I’ve actually been living two secret lives: one as a closet geek; the other as a level 85 Night Elf hunter named Ephemere.

Yes, I play WoW.

It’s something I swore I would never do, ever since I had a boyfriend in my early 20s who raided on weeknights with his guild.

“What’s a raid?” I asked him. “Is it where you go into a town and kill people and raid their supplies?”

“Sort of,” he responded, mashing buttons on his keyboard. That sounded mean to me (I realize now that he didn’t mean he was ganking people, though I wouldn’t put it past him. Filthy Hordies.) And between those mean raids and the auction house addiction and that familiar “I just gotta do one thing real quick” refrain that all gamers say at one point or another, I developed a deep-seated hatred for World of Warcraft.

But my love of geeks only grew. Shortly after I broke up with Hordie-man and moved to Central Alberta for good, I fell in with a group of geeks (all gamers) at my work – one of whom introduced me to my husband, Ryan. Once I found out he was a nerd like me, I stared at him suspiciously and asked, “You don’t play WoW…do you?”

He was sheepish about it. I only play a couple of nights a week, he said. I’m pretty casual, he said. I don’t really play with the other guys, he said. So I let it go. He was tall and handsome and funny and sweet and he had his tongue pierced. He restricted his gaming to the two nights a week we didn’t spend together, and he didn’t talk much about it. All in all, a geeky dream come true.

So we fell in love, moved in together, and got a puppy. And, like most couples, we had to navigate the logistics of living with another sometimes-obnoxious always-there human: chores, TV time, puppy care, friends and family, and - lo and behold - gaming.

One day, I said to Ryan, "I'll tell you what. If you come skiing with me, I'll try WoW with you."

We created a toon on his account that very night, a Night Elf hunter I named Ephemere - Night Elf because they are exotic but pretty, hunter because I wanted a pet, and Ephemere for my favorite type of beer. I leveled to 10 in the Night Elf starting area with Ryan next to me on the couch, telling me where to go and what to do. (This was before Blizzard made it stupid simple to figure out where to go by marking it on the map.)

And I was terrible. I had never gamed like that before; my gaming experience up to that point had been Coolboarders on our Playstation growing up. I could barely figure out how to move my character with my mouse, let alone try to navigate one of those long ramps that the Night Elf architects are so fond of. World of Warcraft was frustrating, scary, confusing - and I loved it.

Ryan did then what any sensible geek man would do when presented with a girlfriend who liked gaming: he deleted my character from his account and bought me my own copy of the game as a Valentine's Day present. I was elated; we played that very night. And we haven't stopped since.

Busting around Azeroth with Ephemere and Talithynn - Ryan's Night Elf druid - has been one of our favorite things to do as a couple. Because we live in a one-bedroom condo, we game on our laptops on the couches in the same room, meaning our in-game together time is in-person together time, too. And, unlike going to a movie or out for drinks or to the park to walk the dog, our game dates help us - sometimes force us - to work together, to communicate clearly, to cooperate, to be a team.

There's a brilliant web comic I read called NPC, and one strip captured the couple gaming experience perfectly. (Go ahead and read it; I'll wait.) We bicker when we play, but the game is just better when we play it together. We've explored every inch of the world together, finished all the Alliance-side quests (pre-Cataclysm) together, enjoyed all the lore together (so much so that we've bought and read all the WoW books, graphic novels, and manga), raided together, cried in battlegrounds together (okay, I cried...people can be so mean during Children's Week...) And by achieving so much together, even only in fake life, we've strengthened our relationship in real life.

WoW has also helped us build closer connections with our friends and family. Last spring, a guildie from down in Seattle came up to Alberta for another guildie's wedding reception and popped in for a visit. We had such fun hanging out with him - a man that, really, we had never met before - that we invited him back for a week in the summer and then drove down to his place for the following week. The week he was here, we gathered our local guildies (of which there are many; most of us know each other in real life) and had a BBQ. Better yet: we set up a bit of a LAN party at my brother-in-law's house and did some raiding as a guild.

Anyone who calls geeks anti-social has no idea; the best part of WoW is the social connections you make in guild, in group, even in trade chat. And our love of WoW has led to another social past-time: the WoW card-game. Ryan and his friends play cards once a week here at a card shop, and then once a month, they head to Calgary or Edmonton to play in tournaments.

So even though Ryan never did come skiing with me, he did something better for me: he gave me a world I love and new friends to share it with.

(And if you happen to be in Central Alberta - anywhere, really - and want to do some gaming with a pretty laid-back guild, pst Ephemere on Uther. She's the guild-leader's wife; she has clout.)