Breakfast Topic: Do you play WoW with your significant other?
Note: The above image is from January 2005. Isn't it quaint?
I love playing MMOs with the guy in my life -- whoever that may be at the time. I even stopped dating someone once because he was uninterested in trying out EverQuest with me. (We didn't have that much in common anyway.) The Spousal Unit and I have played multiple MMOs together over the years. Even though he has dropped WoW and moved to SWTOR, we are having a fantastic time PvPing together. (Fight at the objective!)
Video game dates are a cheap way to date your partner and can really help strengthen a relationship -- as long as both people want to play and are enjoying the chosen in-game activities. When a couple disagrees on what they should be doing in Azeroth together, bad things can happen.
Recently, a woman wrote in to Drama Mamas wondering if she should try to play World of Warcraft with her husband, who is an avid player. She isn't a gamer but was willing to try it in order to spend more time with her spouse. Trying out games in order to spend more time with a partner is normal and often rewarding. But a husband who refuses to learn how to play his character and makes his wife and guild carry him is just one of the instances why WoW playdates don't always work.
As a side note, though the common perception is that men have to put up with wives not pulling their weight in games, I wasn't just switching roles to be politically correct. The very first instance that I came across a player carrying his or her spouse through a game, it was the wife doing the carrying. He couldn't be bothered to learn about how to control his hunter pet in dungeons, and guildies stopped wanting to group with them.
Do you play WoW with your significant other? If so, are you both avid gamers, or is one just hanging out to get some together time? If not, is it a lack of interest or some other reason? Which one of the two of you is the more avid gamer?
If you aren't in a couple, would you like your future partner to also be your partner in Azeroth?
