Monday, November 17, 2008

WoW Domestic Disputes (Part 3)

Part of a continuous story in the life of a WoW player in a serious relationship with a non-WoW player. Last installment here http://darraxusthewarrior.blogspot.com/2008/10/wow-domestic-disputes-part-2.html

The most recent debacle has to do over the switching of playing time. Woman is a confusing creature no matter how we try, we will never understand them. They get unreasonably angry at things that a guy would just shrug their shoulders at.

So, Lich King was coming up and my fiance knew how much I was looking forward to playing it. She offered to let me play on Thrusday (a normally designated snuggle night), in exchange for the following Wednesday (one of my 3 WoW nights). I figured that the game would take forever to install and that I would probably not have time to play so I declined. Then my fiance went and bought the expansion and installed it for me before I got home. When I got home, I was very excited and asked if it was OK if I still take her up on the offer of switching nights.

She seemed OK with it until later that night. Then she went into a huge tirade about me going back on my word blah blah blah. I was like "HUH?" I had asked if it was still ok to switch nights after she had said it was ok to switch nights. Now I was suddenly going back on my word? So I said "Ok, I'll snuggle with you tonight then." To which she replies "No, just go play your stupid game".

Why would you say go ahead and play, then get pissed, and when I offer not to play, you tell me to play, only to get mad at me for playing? Is this bizzarro world that I am living in? Is this a weird backwards dimension? There was so much flip flopping going on that my head was spinning. Then to top it off, she was mad at me all the next day as well as part of the day after that. Because I did what she told me to do. CRANKY WOMEN ARE CRANKY.

I really dont get it. It isnt like I spend that much time on the game. I play on Weds, Sat, and Sunday. All of those days, I play after she has gone to bed for the night. I will play for a little bit if I get home before her. I dont see how playing this little can be such a big damn issue. She can ask for more snuggle nights, but if I ask to play my game another night it is because I dont want to spend time with her? WHA? I just spent all day with you, cooked dinner, and put you to bed. LAYING NEXT TO YOU WHILE YOU SLEEP IS NOT SPENDING TIME WITH YOU. Im sorry, it just isnt.

I will continue with my mission to get her to play WoW. Maybe I can make her a little bit more understanding in the process.

8 comments:

Tom said...

I'm sorry to hear that. While I also will never figure out what's going thru their minds I think this comes down more to... a general annoyance that there was any deviation from a schedule that she already tolerates.

I was watching a chick flick once where two people were arguing. The chick says "you never do the dishes" the guy says "OK I'll do the dishes"

The chick says "I don't want to to do the dishes.. I want you to WANT to do the dishes"

Seems like that's what's going on here. She's not so much angry that you played WOW one day instead of another; she's angry that you WANTED to swap days at the first oportunity instead of sticking with your original word and WANTING to spend time with her instead.

What's the big deal... from my perspective nothing, but from her's apparently a lot.

Hope that makes sense

Darraxus said...

Yeah. Its just so annoying how irrational they can be sometimes. I gave up another WoW night last week because I had to work a night shift and she insisted on it since "I took away a snuggle night". I HAD TO WORK WTF!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Women, can't live with 'em, can't have heterosexual sex without them.

I think women are inherently hostile towards a man's hobbies/interests.

Going out drinking, hanging out with the band, reading a book involves lasers or spies or elves, playing with power tools, anything involves cars, board games that involves world conquest, anything to do with computers. These are all male pastimes that women in general see little to no value in and therefore there is something wrong with doing them.

I think managed to explain this to my wife. People like doing things they are good at. Thats why she likes shopping, music and socialising. Thats why I like using my nerd powers of mathematical and strategic analysis.

Captain The First said...

Woman are interesting creatures. They know exactly what they want, they know exactly how to get it and they know exactly how to get what they want and still have a reason to be angry at you.

You'll be losing wow time like mad over this one.

Just play the stupid game :)

Anonymous said...

The best way I have found to fix this issue is to get the girlfriend to find her own hobby. It seems like she is ok with you playing wow...she just wants you to choose her over the game.

Its really a complicated situation that millions of men go through. The best way I found to deal with this is to NOT setup days of the week that you play. If you decide to do this, play it cool. On your regular wow days, hang out with her. When she asks why aren't you playing...say something along the lines of

"you don't want my company?"

Which will work in your favor, just play it cool.

Just have it in your mind that you are going to play three days a week. This will help...I SPEAK TRUTH!

Also, it really really really helps if you girl finds a hobby she can do while you play. Such examples are cooking, watching tv, arts and crafts, knitting. Nagging her to play wow is something you want to stay away from in my opinion.

Overall, you need to have a real talk with her about your feelings and how it makes you feel that she doesn't like you doing one of your hobbies, something that makes you happy.

just my 2 cents though...good luck brother

Anonymous said...

I guess I'm lucky. My wife was the one that convinced me to play WoW. I've always been a console gamer, and getting sucked into an MMO scared the crap outta me. Still, it's a blast, and more fun since we always play and level together. To be honest, if I wasn't playing with my wife, I probably would have gotten bored of WoW and quit months ago, it's just not the same without her.

As to your dilemma, you'll find plenty of people here and elsewhere that will agree with you, if that's what you're looking for, but it won't solve your issue.

Have you tried looking at it from your fiancee's perspective? Determine why she's upset about it, and not just what to do to keep her "happy" (which really means "not mad at you")?

Have the two of you actually talked about the game, about how it makes you feel or why you enjoy it? At the very least let her roll a toon and see if she can at least understand why you find it fun, even if it's not for her.

In the end it's still about communication and understanding. While you seem to be compromising with your lady, you don't seem to have much communication or understanding on either side of the debate (at least based on your WDD post series).


Also, I should add that while in my experience, many WoW players don't watch a lot of TV (as it would take from WoW time ^_^), most everyone else does. It could be that watching shows with your lady, while you see it as quality time, she sees it as just something normal that everyone does. It's how we connect with people socially, those little threads that are unimportant alone, but give us a reason to start a conversation and so on, shallow as it might sound.

Perhaps find another activity to do with her, maybe one that involves communication and working together on something, instead of TV. After all, TV isn't a "together" thing, it's just two people in the same place, doing the same thing coincidentally. You're not actively engaging each other while watching a show passively.

*drops $.02 in the jar.
/GoodLuck

Darraxus said...

Well, we do communicate about it and I think that the main problem she has with it is that I am spending time with other people besides her. I have gotten her to start playing a bit, but we will see how that goes. Unfortunately, one of the problems she has is that she doesnt have any hobbies. None at all.

Kinzlayer said...

Ok, I think there is a key word in what you had said, "... Its just so annoying how irrational they can be sometimes. I gave up another WoW night last week ..." some women truly just want to know that you think of them before anything else, whether if it is practical or not to actually do anything beyond thinking of them.

Do not try to make sense but try to feel the situation.