A
female
age
36-40,
anonymous
writes:I've been dating my current boyfriend for almost 6 months now. He's sweet, intelligent, funny, and all around, a terrific guy. But like everyone else, he has his problems. Recently, he is becoming more and more involved in World of Warcraft. While I'm not opposed to him playing this game, I feel that it's affecting our relationship and his life. Yesterday, I asked him to go to lunch with me, a typical thing we do everyday. I asked about 3 times, and he kept replying, "Yeah, as soon as I'm done raiding." or "Sure, let me just do something really quick." And then, he'll be playing WoW for 20 minutes before I ask again, and then he'll just say that he still needs to do something really quick with WoW. He says he's not addicted to the game, but I can't help but feel that he is. I've told him about it too, but all he says is that he isn't addicted, he just doesn't like leaving his WoW group. Also, he's always pestering me to finish whatever it is I need to do (in some cases, it's something really important, like an email to a potential employer, or studying for an exam) so we can go eat together. However, when I ask him if he's ready to go eat, he always says "Give me 30 minutes." One day, he asked, "When do you want to go eat?" And I suggested, "How about 6?" Then, he said, "6:30? I've got this raid." Why did he even bother to ask me if he was just going to shoot down my suggestion in the first place? Also, when we go out to eat at restaurants, he's always complaining about how pricey they are. I feel really bad about this, but I can't help but feel that it isn't my fault. I never asked him to go out to eat, he's the one who suggested it in the first place, and I agreed, and then once we're there, he's like "It's so expensive! I'm too poor." It makes me feel really, really bad. And so, I never ask to go eat out because I know he's just going to say how expensive the restaurant is. And then, we'll get into a fight and he says I'm never excited about doing anything with him, I never ask to go eat out, but the reason why I don't ask to eat out is because he ends up complaining in the end! One more thing, for awhile before, he was pretty upset about my past. I dated my high school sweetheart for 1.5 years, but we broke it off, and then I started dating my current boyfriend. Well, my boyfriend is always saying that he doesn't feel special because I had sex with my ex-boyfriend. I don't regret having sex with my ex-boyfriend, because we had a good, strong relationship, and we loved each other. I don't feel like I should regret my past either, because it already happened and I thought about it really carefully and we talked about it for a long time before actually doing it, so it wasn't a hasty decision in any way. But my current boyfriend feels that because I had sex with someone else, he's "sharing" me with someone else. He hates the fact that there's someone else in the world who has had sex with me. I told him that of course the sex we have is special and means so much to me, which is true, and that it was my past and has nothing to do with my present, which is him, and the future, which is potentially him. But he's still upset about it. He says that I'm the love of his life and he wants to marry me. I feel the same way, I love him and I really do want to marry him in the end, but these little things bother me from time to time. I don't know - maybe I'm just too picky or are these real problems?
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (5 March 2010): Omg, my boyfriend is exactly the same. I think you just need to tell him straight forward that you are upset by it. But don't tell him to quit.. Or you know what, ask him to teach you how to play too. Thats what my boyfriend did. Yes I guess its fun for the first 10 mins then I am sick of it. too boring you know. just constantly killing things. anyway maybe plann something to do together and tell him that he CANT delay the timing by playing wow . and tell him that it means a lot to you.
A
female
reader, *mAnDi*pAnDi*  +, writes (3 March 2010):
Don't keep dating him. If he plays too much WoW now, it'll only get worse and more addicting. Also, if he's mad that you slept with another guy, and he's only had sex with you, he'll want to sleep with another girl and he'll either resent not being able to and be jealous forever, or he'll cheat on you, or leave you for another girl. sorry. btw, psych major.
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (4 May 2009): cut off the plug.
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (4 May 2009): My bf was addicted to EQ. He would never admit it ofc. But it affected our lives (I was living with him). It sucked cuz he would get angry whenever he lost and hardly did anything with me during the night (We work daily). Anyways, I'm not living with him anymore and told him to set his priorities straight before I'd move in with him again. I'm not against him playing, just not so much that it would have a negative impact on BOTH of our lives.
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A
male
reader, LazyGuy  +, writes (4 May 2009):
 An early popular MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) was Everquest (note what that name says) that was often called Evercrack.
WoW is EQ-light. It is far simpler and far more direct about its game. There is less to do on the side and more just plain "Do X to achieve Y 100x".
This works as a game model because people like simplicity. Real life is difficult with obscure rules and very long waits before you see any results for your efforts if any.
I can log into an MMORPG, and I KNOW I am going to reach the next level in X amount of time. WoW (World of Warcraft) even has extensions (small programs you can add on to the game) that tell you how much time you need to kill stuff at your current rate for the next level.
Compare this to real life? How do you know when you are going to get the next raise? The next promotion? Learn a new language? Train a new skill? Unlock base 3 on your gf pet? Have her evolve into the next pokemon? Oh wait, different game.
And nobody played his alt (term for a game character), he doesn't have to share the new item. While it is a bit childish to think you should have been a virgin, a game like WoW encourages that childnesses by being a simple world with simple rules.
There is no harm in escaping the real world from time to time. There is harm if you can't accept that the real world is the real world and things are never perfect there. Your gf is unlikely to be a virginal princess. Meals are expensive and while grinding gold in WoW is boring at least you can do it unlike the real world where there is minimum salary and inflation.
In short, he needs to grow up. if you indulge his behavior you are allowing him to remain a child. If you go against him, you risk alienating him. But hey, you picked him, you get to deal with him. You say he is a great guy, with just these couple of problems, so deal with them.
Tell him that just as he needs to participate in raid events to grind his equipment, he needs to plan date events if he expect to grind his equipment with you. Relationships to need to be levelled up.
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A
female
reader, purplecloud03  +, writes (4 May 2009):
 my ex boyfriend was obsessed with wow. did the exact same thing urs does by putting things off cos he has to do something on WoW first. i would never get to see him unless i invited myself over n then when i was over he would just be playing wow. so basically you need to tell him that u feel like wow is more important to him then you. my ex started to not go out n see people n it affected his social life and his excuse was well its not like im just playing games these people are real people and im talking to them just not in person. i found it extremely hard to get through to him and i never really did. we didn't break up because of wow we had other problems. as for u saying u never ask him out to eat?? im confused at the start ur example was ud ask him to go out to lunch but he would say he had stuff to do on wow.just find something else to do, go buy some food n make lunch instead of eating out. its more romantic and personal.as for the sex thing- he needs to get over that, he is being very selfish saying that he feels like he is sharing u?? that's just wrong, its not like ur sleeping with ur ex still so how is he sharing u? one more thing that might help with wow is if u find out he is on wow when u ask him to do something tell him that uve changed ur mind and if he wont get off wow when he says he will that u dont want to see him. stop seeing him and talkin to him if he keeps doing it and tell him that if he doesnt slow down n spend more time with u then ull leave him. and also there is the argument that if he can afford to play wow maybe he should consider not playing wow so he can go to dinner with u or spend time with u.
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