Ask WoW Insider: My Girlfriend won't let me level

Welcome to today's edition of Ask WoW Insider, in which we publish your questions for dissection by the peanut gallery -- now with extra snark and commentary by one of our writers. This week "Lovelorn in Azeroth" writes in:

WoW-Playing Girlfriend Drama

Or rather, "Here, don't level or do anything that'll give the character you play all the time any XP while I start to level a level one character that I hate playing all the time up to your character's level, and then make your character keep pace with mine! That way, everything will be super-special-awesome!"

Dear WoWinsider,

My name is [name omitted to protect the... something] elven fire mage of Area 52. Over three months ago, my girlfriend and I agreed (willingly, for the most part) that I should pause my leveling to allow her to roll up a new toon that would catch up to me, and allow us to adventure together across Azeroth on equal footing. Fine and dandy, non?

Fast forward a few months later, and I am still around the same level, and her character is now only barely getting into the high 40s. I have lost a lot of online friends I made while leveling, they having progressed to 70. My girlfriend admits to a strong dislike of playing her character for the sole purpose of leveling, and I have hinted, perhaps too subtly, that I want to go melt faces already.

It's sad- I have singlehandedly increased the money in the guildbank tenfold, and leveled my enchanting far beyond what any normal person of my level should have. Some may find that a impressive achievement, but I find it rather pathetic. Part of my new year's resolution was to get to 70, advance my guild, and defeat Kael before patch 2.4 came out. Sadly, though, looks like that's not happening.

It should be noted that my girlfriend wants us to "experience new content at the same time", which, to her, means that simply rerolling together is no good, since I've already "experienced all content up to my level". I have proposed rerolling some allies, but she shudders at memories of all the "mail" quests ally-side, so that's a no-go as well.

My question to you is: How do I get to level again without restraint? I've talked to her a few times, and she says that if I should go on by myself, I would not be allowed to share any achievements with her, and we'd essentially each have to pretend the other doesn't exist, which is a real fun-siphon. How can I level and be able to finally go "Woo! Seventy!" to everyone I know?

Sincerely,
Your friendly neighborhood fire mage.

P.S.: Getting a new SO is out of the question. No ifs, ands or buts.

Well, at least he's not bitter.

I can't help but think that somewhere in here is a Paul Harvey "Now you know.... the rest of the story" moment, but I'm forced to take this at face value.

If I read this right, your girlfriend isn't opposed to playing the character she has, she just don't want to play only to level (and I can't blame her on that). Probably, because while you admit to trying to be subtle, you're running around like Chester going "Hey, Spike, what are we doing to do today?" Because, lets face it, when it comes to this sort of stuff, us guys aren't known for our subtlety. So, it's decision time: do you leave your girlfriend behind to race off with your online friends, or do you work out a solution to make the person you spend cold winter nights with when the power is out happy. I'd choose the latter, or your face is going to be one getting melted.

You need to make the game fun for her. She's not opposed to playing, she just doesn't want to kill 65 million boars. The solution might be as simple as letting her drive when you play, or running some instances together -- if you're in a good guild and they have alts the same level you can run a few instances with them; they could slow the pulls down a bit so she could enjoy it. Or you could bring her over to the recently revamped Dustwallow Marsh and try out all the new quests there, and, if you've never been there you get the whole "experience new content thing."

Let's throw this out to the studio audience: what do you think "Lovelorn" should do. Let's be kind here, too.