If you’ve played WoW, or just about any other game that involves progressively getting better gear and such, you know what it’s like to see those “great” players who have it all. The gear, mounts, gold, titles, etc that you want. Those people usually seem so unapproachable or seem like they’d be complete jerks who only want to associate with those as “good” as them. I made the mistake of believing this until just recently.

I have a Druid on my server. She’s my baby, and I’m working as hard as I can to get her in top shape. Even still, she’s lacking considerably. Now, as a Druid, I take note of all the progressing Druids that are doing better than me. What gear they have, what guild they’re in, what stats they focus on, etc. My Druid idol, Fathernature is pretty much everything I strive for my little Kikomo to be. He’s in the servers number one guild [which my guild is in direct competition with, since we're number two] and, as such, is one of the top Resto Druids. A couple weeks back, I was taking part in a Wintergrasp battle and complaining to some of the distant raid members that they needed to get closer to me so I could heal them, because my heals won’t cross the map. A Druid in the raid tells me, “Heal better.” and I /cry in raid. He then proceeds to whisper me, /hug. That was the only thing he said to me, and we went about healing the raid. That was the only thing I heard from him for a while.

About a week later, I get a whisper from him telling me I need a new helm. Now, at the time, I was complaining about not being able to replace my helm because I wasn’t really raiding. He told me about the one he wanted and where he had to get it from and again, disappeared. Two days later, I get a whisper from him on his alt asking me if I got a new helm yet. I hadn’t yet, of course, so I told him that. Again, he disappears. So, later that week, I get into a raid with my guild and a helm drops. I get the helm. It takes me about 45 minutes to realize that I had just received the helm he had been looking for. I was ecstatic and couldn’t wait for him to ask again. I would have to wait another few days for this to happen. However, this time it was different.

I say something in Trade and he sees me talking there. So I get a whisper this time asking how I am, etc. Then he says, “Hey, can you do me a favor real quick?” I’m not one to say no, so of course I find out what he wants. Apparently he had clicked Tree Form while in Flight Form, and plummeted to his death on a little island outside of Dalaran. He wanted a rez. He wasn’t the first person to ask me for a rez from a silly death, so I flew out and rezzed him. He sees my helm and congratulates me about 20 times, and expresses his jealousy that I got it. We end up sitting on that island, talking for about 2 and a half hours. It was so nice to just be able to sit and talk to someone without fear of being judged and without my guild tag clouding their judgment. After our chat, we end up parting ways to go to our respective raids. Periodically, over the next week or so, I’d get random whispers of “/ruffle” with no real conversation stemming from it. I figured he’d found me boring and had decided to move on. I was wrong.

A few days later, he strikes up a random conversation with me, about my helm. He had apparently forgotten the 20 other times he congratulated me on it that first time, and proceeds to tell me, “OMG A HELM!” I make fun of his terrible memory and he laughs about it. We sit in Dalaran talking like last time, when we start discussing eye colors. I have horrible green eyes and I told him this. He tells me he’s got bright blue eyes and asks me if I’d seen someone who’s name I can’t remember. I say no, and he asks if I have a copy & paste mod installed. I didn’t, so he asked if I had AIM. I told him I did and he proceeds to give him his screenname and tells me to send him a message. Unable to find a decent picture of the persons eyes he was talking about, he just showed his instead. This is where the true conversation started. From that point, we talked for hours. We talked about anything and everything. It was wonderful and fulfilling and cheered me up immensely because finally, I had a distraction from missing Brian. And the most important thing for me, the one thing that made it all that much better, was that we were talking purely as friends. No hidden intentions or pick up lines.. none of the foolishness that most guys exude in-game. He was just being my friend.

Yesterday, I was having a rough day. And it was apparent to anyone who took the time to talk to me. Toward the end of the day, my temper was dangerously short. He picked up on this rather quickly and told me to follow him somewhere. We flew to a place he discovered while leveling, and I had seen it too while there. It’s one of the small treats Blizzard puts into the game. A three-panel aquarium view hidden away at the end of a corridor. We sat there and just talked. I left for a while to just take a nap and see if that helped. I felt a little better, but I was still bothered and unable to sleep. So we go back to the aquarium and he asked me what kind of movies I like. I said I love comedy with musicals as a very close second. He’s like, “How about a musical about a serial killer?” I couldn’t think of what that’d be, but I told him I’d watch any musical once. He sends me a link over AIM telling me to let the movie load up all the way and whispers me in-game, “Let’s watch a movie then.” I do as he asks, and realize the movie is Sweeney Todd. I had wanted to watch it, but never got to. So, we proceed to watch the movie and talk over AIM until about 2:45 in the morning. I quickly realize that I had kept him up until almost 6am his time, and felt terrible. He told me not to worry about it, that it was worth it and he didn’t mind in the least. It was at that moment that I thought to myself, I hope there are many more nights like this.

Looking back over the last month, I’ve realized that I need to allow myself to talk to people this way more often. I spend too much of my time closed off from everyone. Too busy keeping to myself, shielding myself from the hurt that people like me cause. And by doing this, I miss out on unexpected friendships such as this. So, it is my goal to better myself in that respect, and to not be so quick to judge people. Just because they’re farther progressed in a game, does not mean they are all going to be complete jerks. This isn’t to say there aren’t jerks up there, but hey .. they’re everywhere.