Trust, optimism, and me

I was told today that I'm an optimist. I thought all my optimism had been worn off by time, that I'd become a cynic through and through thanks to time and the business world. It was a bit of a shock to realize that the person who said this is right when it comes to friendships and my social life.

Recent events in our guild have made me realize I tend to give complete trust when I give my friendship, and that I tend to remain unswervingly trusting even when there are hints that I'm overlooking major character flaws. I wear giant blinders, something I would never tolerate in my business life.

As a result, although that makes me a good friend to the person I've given my trust to...it also seems to make me a total patsy, someone who is easy to fool. When faced with complete evidence of wrong-doing in someone I trusted I continue to say "let's not be hasty" and want more and more evidence before (finally) removing that trust.

Unfortunately, this time I have definitely seen proof, and I seriously feel betrayed. It sucks.

And it makes me doubt myself and my judgement. It's really sad to think that the actions of this one person will make me doubt myself and feel uncomfortable making new friends for some time.

It's not a job...it's an adventure

Too bad that's the worst line of BS ever written. A job is a job is a job. That's why it's called "work" and not called "fun" or "vacation."

Running a Warcraft guild is definitely a tough job. My short stint wasn't a complete flop...but it was filled with drama, gquits, frequently changed "message of the day" text, demotions and promotions, lots of chatting, and lots of hard work. Good thing I have a lot of experience herding cats.

It feels like it lasted at least a month...I believe I was GM for 3.5 days max, maybe a little less.

Will I try it again? Sure -- I'm not one to back down from a challenge, even if all that hard work does rather ruin my plans to become the most infamous flirt and slacker on Zuluhed.

So, I'm not a kid

Get over it.

As Jimmy Buffet says....

I rounded first never thought of the worst
As I studied the shortstop's position
Crack went my leg like the shell of an egg
Someone call a decent physician
I'm no Pete Rose, I can't pretend
Though my mind is quite flexible,
these brittle bones don't bend

I'm growing older but not up
My metabolic rate is pleasantly stuck
Let those winds of time blow over my head
I'd rather die while I'm living than live while I'm dead

Sometimes I see me as old manatee
Headin' south as the waters grow colder
Tries to steer clear of the hum-drum so near
It cuts prop scars deep in his shoulder
But that's how it goes (that's howit goes), right to the end
Though his body's quite flexible,
thatbarnacle brain don't bend

I'm growing older but not up
My metabolic rate is pleasantly stuck
Let those winds of time blow over my head
I'd rather die while I'm livin' than live while I'm dead

Now don't get me wrong
This is not a sad song
Just events that I have happened to witness
And time takes its toll as we head for the poll
And no one dies from physical fitness
So what the hell, we'll take it right to the end
As the days grow more complicatedthe nightlife still wins

I'm growing older but not up
My metabolic rate is pleasantly stuck
Let those winds of change blow over my head
I'd rather die while I'm living than live while I'm dead
Let those winds of time blow over my head
I'd rather die while I'm living than live while I'm dead

Tuesday morning = downtime

I love to read the general forums on Tuesday morning -- no matter how big the message is on the WoW startup screen, or how long it's up there, there's always someone who posts on the general forum wanting to know why they can't get into WoW. Seeing these weekly messages reassures me that the human race has not progressed...we still spend 99.9% of our time wandering around with giant blinkers on and end up shocked (shocked I tell you!) when normal and ordinary things happen.

It's just too bad that more of life doesn't have a regularly scheduled Maintenance Event. I'd love to have a morning of downtime from being responsible, for example. Or an afternoon of downtime from working on my relationships. And an entire day of extended maintenance on my laundry and housecleaning would really be nice. Of course, being human, I'd have to post a WTF message somewhere complaining about the downtime instead of just enjoying the momentary break.

I'm boring myself

This blog has gotten far too boring...

Let's talk about sex.

Funny thing, but as long as you're dancing around the subject (on the WoW forums or in chat) it's considered appropriate, even if some of the folks involved are potentially under-aged teens. But god help you if you talk about it honestly, no matter what the ages of the folks involved. Doesn't matter what type or variety of sex either. In my book, honest blunt talk has saved a lot of confused young things from making brutal mistakes based on not understanding subtle sarcasm.

Some day I may just get tired of the misinformation and blow out a few folks' brain cells with a wee bit of truth about women, growing older, and sex. After all, if I'm going to be forum banned it might as well be for giving someone some honest and useful information about an activity they'll spend most of their adult years doing.

Heck with arena ratings...in the long run earning a few purple epics for your sex life is much more important.

Testing Boundaries

So, things are slightly nutty in Guild-land. Seems the change of officers has brought out the giddy and silly side. And the testing side.

How far can they go before they make me mad? Hmmm....good question. Steam needs to be let off right now, tensions need to be diffused. But if it looks like the chat/actions are too distruptive, or that my temporary authority is being undermined, I'll need to shut it down for the good of the guild. I'll start by asking for a change in behavior (in a whisper, not putting them on the spot) but I'm prepared to escalate to a public discussion. Peer pressure is a wonderful thing.

And most importantly, it wasn't actually an idle threat I made in chat this morning, tho I think that specific pusher-of-envelopes thinks it was. He can tease, be goofy, be dominant in chat...but M expects me to hold things together so if he goes too far I will indeed offer 200g to the horde who kills and camps (and screenshots) him. It'd be worth every copper.

Drama....happens

So, as of this morning I'm a Guild Master. Not a planned transition, but rather a drama transition.

Not sure what specifically caused this to happen (tho I think I may have played a big part) but here's the summary of events. Bunch of guildies are online, various things being chatted about. One person is whispering me that she's upset, I'm giving advice, also chatting with my mother-in-law who asks complicated questions that take all my attention so I wasn't really following gchat that well.

Then suddenly, M, the GM and founder, transfers GM-ness to me, gquits and logs out. She said nothing to anyone, just vanished.

Why do I think I played a big part in the drama? Mostly because outside of WoW I commented to M that she was overreacting about something the other day -- I was actually trying to get her to step back and relax, to not take certain things to heart so that she wouldn't feel so stressed (she has enough life stress, doesn't need to compound it by taking random crap personally). She saw my comment as attacking her, not helping her, and said so. Add to her feeling that she was being attacked by me a guild defection that upset her and a bunch of other little things going on in the guild and you have a moment where it gets overwhelming...and so she tossed off the item overwhelming her.

I don't want to be a GM -- I do my best to stay away from responsibility in all areas of my life. I'm honest enough about my shortcomings to know that I want (crave) attention and flattery, and don't want more work. But I'm grown up enough that I don't shirk responsibility when it's handed to me (tho not so grown up that I stop whining). That means it's up to me to keep things together until M reaches a point in her life where she can come back.

Gah...this is not what I had in mind for relaxed Sunday.

Leaving the nest

Folks leave guilds all the time. They come, they go. It's like dating, in a way...but really, it's more like parenting. At some point the little chicks leave the nest.

I'm always sad to see someone move on, but my being a stick-in-the-mud scrub who fears anything more challenging than a lvl 60 instance does not stop me from feeling happy and proud when they fly away. Do I miss them? Yeah, sure. But I also feel like cheering.

Good luck and godspeed, kiddos. May you find whatever you're looking for.

It's not personal, really

Some folks take things so very personally that it can physically hurt me to chat with them. What must they be like in real life when they assume so frequently in-game that someone's actions or some goofy trash talk were completely and solely geared to hurt them personally, instead of merely being part of playing a game?

Yes, there's a real human on the other end of each and every toon in WoW. You can never forget that you can hurt real human feelings when interacting -- we aren't NPCs. But if you have to walk around on tiptoes and watch every word the fun fades very quickly. This is still a game. Play it, don't live in it, don't live for it.

Boredom is a disease

And it's a catchy one when it comes to forums or guilds in WoW.

On the forums, there'll be a small bit of action, a few interesting posts, then everyone (and every thread) loses energy. It's often blamed on folks being busy with "real lives" but what I've seen happening is folks growing bored with the topics at hand rather than getting distracted away from them. And when they're bored they wander away to read the latest gossip about some hollywood starlette and don't return.

In guilds, the boredom is shown in short tempers, impatience, and whining. And in trying to stir things up by scheduling events. And when that person's boredom isn't fixed by an event or a discussion that gets folks fired up, they vanish just like the forum posters. They don't log in, or log out early, and over time are seen less and less.

The worst part about boredom is that it's catchy. When one person gets it, another soon follows. And before you know it you have a dead forum or guild.

New blood (server transfers, new members) helps for a while, but doesn't fix the actual problem -- a lack of something interesting to do or talk about. Having someone try to stir things up will also help for a while, but often that person gets tired of carrying so much weight around and abdicates.

But the bottom-line problem here is that the only complete cure for boredom in WoW is external to the players -- the game or events in the world of warcraft themselves have to be *interesting* enough to generate postings and activity without anyone stirring things up. A person (no matter how determined) can only make small ripples in the Warcraft pond, but it's up to Blizzard to create an entire tide.

I find this funny...

Strangely and sadly, I find this comic very amusing:

http://xkcd.com/72/

No, you actually aren't

It's a known fact -- in WoW if you say "I am good at X" you actually aren't that thing in the eyes of most people. If you say "I'm great at PvP" you probably suck in other folks' eyes.

We tend (in the real world) to have blinders on about our own faults and failings, and often try to bolster our egos (and do some postitive thinking) by making positive statements. But within the World of Warcraft if you go around proclaiming something you are even *more* likely to be wrong. If you say to me "My talents are just fine" after I've asked you a question about them, then I'm 99% sure they're terrible. Not because I've seen them in action or because I know anything about your class or spec, but because in 99% of the cases when someone makes a blanket statement like that while they are in the game they are 100% wrong.

The game is not real life. Don't confuse RL positive thinking with being a total blockhead in game.

Don't push me

Certain folks get far too...well, pushy, I guess I'd say, within the World of Warcraft. There's this tendency by those folks to say in trade, group, or guild chat "[name] is doing X" without checking with the named person first. It's one thing when you're teasing them in trade (e.g. "Joe is dating Jean") but quite another when you're discussing anything else. If you say "Azune is running X instance" to a group of folks and I either A) lied to you to get you to stop nagging me about when I was actually going to do that instance, or B) already have a group and don't want 20 whispers, you've put me in a bind.

The thing is, the folks who do this have ZERO idea they're causing any problems -- they think they're being helpful. They think of themselves as facilitators and matchmakers. And they, of course, get horribly insulted when you snarl at them because they've just caused you a huge headache.

Bottom line -- don't announce anything in gchat, trade, Vent, or party chat about anyone else. Whisper to the person involved if you feel the need to be helpful. I don't care if you're the party/raid leader, a GM, or the Pope, if I didn't hire you as my PR firm then don't take on that role without asking my permission first.

Best Plaid Lans....

Ever make a huge decision, a live-changing one, and then five minutes later have life kick you in the...well, you know, preventing you from going forward? I woke up at 6, spent two hours thinking, contemplating, debating and deciding. I scheduled, prepared, and was all set. And just moments before the big ta-da moment, life kicked me.

Not a permanent kick, not a big life-changing thing of its own (as sometimes happens) but enough to make me stop and say "not today" because going forward right now would just be the most selfish and snotty thing I've ever done.

Here's the deal -- a huge part of the big decision was to stop running away from conflict. To actually stand up and say "I'm mad as hell and won't take it anymore." I was so proud of myself this morning for reaching that point. And I feel like a stuck record now, unable to move forward but not actually moving back (yet).

We'll see what happens...hopefully I'll find a way to get the courage up and make my stand once this momentary set-back is over. If in real life I actually was Azune, there'd be no problem with thinking I could do this....but that's the funny thing about the character you play in a game and your real persona, they don't always have to match.

Facebook Friends

In addition to my guildies, I've managed to add a few of my Zuluhed flirting buddies to my Facebook friends list. Only a few, mind you, and they're pretty much buried between the photography friends and the total-strangers-who-play-mobwars friends, but they're in there.

It's interesting how Warcraft and social networking has allowed me to make "friends" with people I've never met or talked to...just exchanged forum messages with. The really mind-blowing (for us old farts) part is that in many cases these virtual friends not only spend more time with me, they know more about me than some relatives or real world friends.

But some things remain the same -- the effort to be seen as having a good life (i.e. no blemishes) and the desire to be admired I carry with me whether I'm flirting on a game forum or meeting friends for dinner. I have to admire my own lies.