Breakfast Topic: Are real-life friendships more "real" than in-game friendships?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages.
It was a Saturday night. I had spent the whole week working, and I wanted to do something fun. A buddy of mine called me to go out that night, but I just didn't feel like it. I wanted a fun night, but I didn't feel like going out and doing anything. Another one of my friends called me: "Dude, meet me at ICC in 20 minutes." Then he hung up. I thought to myself, "Should I do something with my real-life friend, or should I play WoW with some people I've never really met?" Well, my WoW friends won, and I spent the rest of the night on an alt beating up ICC for about three hours.
I've noticed as of late I tend to lean toward my WoW friends rather than my real-life friends. Why is that, you ask? I really have no idea. A few of my real-life friends play WoW. One of them is actually the one who got me started in the first place. I quit two years later and then came back because I started dating a girl who played WoW. Needless to say, my troll hunter became a night elf hunter, and I have come to call the people I play WoW with true friends of mine.
Other people may say I am wrong in this mindset. I tell them that I spend more time with the online friends (even though it's not in a physical sense), and I have a lot of fun doing it. Sure, there are arguments and rage-logging occasionally, but doesn't that happen in real life as well? Instead of a door slamming and car burning out in the driveway, you get the nice ding of someone disconnecting from Ventrilo and their name coming up as "Bob has gone offline."
Do you consider your WoW friends real friends? And if you do, what lengths are you willing to go to for them? Are you willing to stay up until 2 in the morning trying to two-man Molten Core, just like you would stay up until 2 in the morning back in high school watching some crappy horror movies with your real-life friends? Have you met up with your WoW friends in real life, and if so, do you now consider them real-life friends?
