It's Complicated

According to the guild's invitation log, I joined <Order of the Holy Fork> on the 18th of August last year, meaning that I will soon have been in my current WoW Classic guild for six months. Like many things during these strange times, it simultaneously feels like no time has passed at all and like I've been in the guild forever. Either way I wanted to do some musing on how things have been going.

When I joined the guild, the best way to describe how I felt after a few days is to say that I fell in love, as strange as it may seem to some to use that particular term for a whole group of people or even an institution. Everyone just seemed so great, making me laugh, helping me see and achieve new things in game; I wanted to be online to chat and play with them all the time.

Even so, there was a more cautious voice inside my head as well, warning me to not fall quite so hard and quite so fast: Sure, they may be fun to hang out with and make you laugh, but you don't know these people (yet). Don't expose yourself to potentially being hurt by assuming too much and trusting too much, too quickly.

And that wasn't entirely wrong, because the honeymoon phase during which everything and everyone seemed perfect couldn't last of course, not in a guild with this many people in it. That's not to say that anything turned out horribly wrong, but there've been conflicts and personality clashes, and sad times over people leaving (whether quietly or angrily), and at times it really got to me! I actually think that my online relationships have become more intense in general since this whole pandemic/lockdown thing started - I've always taken them no less seriously than IRL friendships, but let's just say it's easier to shrug off an argument over Discord when you spend more time being out and about than when you spend all day cooped up at home, as that makes it much easier to end up brooding over what so-and-so might have really meant when they said XYZ... if you know what I mean.

In case the previous paragraph may sound a bit disillusioned, make no mistake: While a couple of relationships with guildies may have turned a little sour over the past few months, others became (even) better. Most notably there were a number of people who mostly ignored me at first - not out of any malice I think, but probably because they'd seen too many new raiders wash out after a couple of weeks to get invested in anyone's company too quickly. As it became apparent that I was planning to be a more or less permanent fixture though, they started to warm up to me and that's been nice to see. Also, I learned that friendship can blossom in the strangest of circumstances... such as spending most of an afternoon arguing with someone about how to pull trash in Naxx.

The situation as a whole has given rise to some rather philosophical thoughts for me. You know how there's all this talk nowadays of social media trapping people in echo chambers? Well, being in a 40-man guild feels a lot like the opposite. Sure, there are some common threads running through the lives of Classic raiders (many are parents trying to catch a break from their spouse and kids for example), but there are just as many differences and you often can't really know what sort of person is hiding behind the avatar beyond "someone who wants to raid". But even if someone suddenly reveals something about themselves that strikes you as negative, well... you can't very well leave over something like that if you want to keep raiding, right? So you stick it out, and then maybe one day that same guy who made you really mad the other week suddenly helps you out with a quest and you go "hmm".

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying people should be forced to spend time in the company of others they don't get along with, but it's been interesting to me how gritting your teeth on occasion to tolerate behaviours you're not fond of can also give you a chance to maybe see another side to that person after a while and reconsider your stance on them.

Twenty years ago when I was an awkward teenager who didn't know anyone in real life who shared any of her dorky interests, finding people that were more like me online was a godsend, and I still think that easily being able to find like-minded people on the internet is a good thing. But I've also come to think that it's not bad to occasionally butt heads in a shared space and maybe find some sort of respect for each other after a while.

And once again I wonder what'll happen when the raid sizes go down in Burning Crusade and there'll be less need to put up with certain individuals to fill out the raid, and you'll ideally want your Kara team to just consist of your closest friends if you have a choice...