Posting on an alt bc ya know… reasons. I have been playing WoW on and off since launch. The older I get, the more difficult I find social situations and have a lot of anxiety and depression surrounding it. Warcraft used to be the place I would look forward to hanging out with friends and run dungeons, raid, pvp, and just have fun! Nowadays, it’s anything but that for me.
My friends got me to come back for Dragonflight after I left in Shadowlands early on and I thought “Okay, here we go… I can do this!”. But as weeks went on, it became clear I was not part of the “in-crowd” anymore since I am not able to raid and my main class I play an off-meta spec for… the meta spec is quite literally too complicated for me to focus on maintaining. I have problems with attention and focus… so trying to juggle 50 things at the same time is very difficult… so I get out-dps’d by tanks half the time or people far lower ilvl than me. I don’t really want to play other classes much… my main is my baby and I want to play him. So… with all of that… I never got invited much to run keys. I would ask if anyone wants to do anything and never got replies. Friends would whisper “Yea man I wanna run stuff with you!” then get dragged by the core group to push keys so I just sat around doing nothing for days on end.
It caused so much anxiety and issues for me I left the guild… twice. I came back with assurances that people wanted me there and enjoyed my company, but I never felt it… or I guess that is how I felt. It’s probably all in my head… idk. I tend to live there lol… I friended a bunch of people from the guild and several added my battle tag but I’ve never run anything with them anymore. I find myself in a place where my anxiety about trying to ask for groups, scared to join pugs bc pugs be pugs ya know, and lack of any community makes me sit there and just cry sometimes. I don’t have a life IRL outside of work and my pets. WoW was the one thing that made me happy… and now it makes me sad all the time.
So… can you relate? How do you deal with your own shortcomings with social aspects of life when it comes to a game literally all about social contact?
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I don’t have it because everyone on here is fake and stops existing when I turn off the computer, but my advice is that if it’s stressful, turn off chat in-game and pretend it’s all NPCs. Or keep it on and never share your real life ID and do whatever you want.
Also, /ignore whoever you don’t like, it’s free. If your ignore list fills, download the GlobalIgnoreList addon. It rocks, it’s unlimited, and now your ignore list is automatically shared among all your characters.
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Medication mostly. The rest is just leaving my bubble every now and then. I mean out in the real world with the bubble thing. ( Well the best I can do with agoraphobia. ) Me being chatty online in text is me when I’m off in my bubble lol.
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I can’t relate because I had the military first and the LORD’s church after for a social life. I never needed WoW for that. I was someone who could put WoW down to actually go out in the night/morning.
I’m sorry about your social foibles, but I’m not sorry about the times I’ve been stabbed in the back from guilds in my WoW career.
That being said, you can already see how WoW isn’t supposed to be the answer for not having ANY social life. Even in my late 30’s I’m not hurting because I’m not in the coolest guilds. I’ve been solo for over 7 years straight.
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Exactly! If you can temper your investment by reminding yourself that this a fun activity in which your involvement with others is purely for entertainment. You can then appreciate that you are here to have a good time, with zero repercussions in the “real world”. I like to tank, and people have said horrible things about how useless I am, but these people are individuals I will never meet who have no impact on my life. I think if you constantly remind yourself to not become overly immersed into the world, you can become a little more confident knowing there are no actual ramifications for someone being rude. This isn’t your job, or out on the street, this is a video game, have fun, and just ignore and move on.
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If you’re having a particularly rough day, you’re not obligated to interact with or talk to anyone. Do your dailies, fish, whatever activity you enjoy. Don’t worry about being chatty in guild chat or out in the world unless you feel like it.
If people asked you to come back and assured you that you’re welcome, just accept that you are. It’s just as easy to shrug and say, “oh well” when someone leaves your guild… yours said they wanted you to come back.
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Awesome! Even if you do meet them in real life, which has a low probability of happening, I don’t tell any IRL stranger I play WoW so they aren’t going to know.
This game is our funhouse. I love all my imaginary friends. And then we all stop existing whenever we want.
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By reading the 3 other posts on the top page about “social anxiety”.
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In saying this though, we shouldn’t tolerate toxic behaviour, but if and when it does happen, just take comfort knowing that while they can say anything they’d like to you, you also have the ability to say and do anything in return.
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I guess that is part of my problem… I do all of those things as basically the only activities I can do. I really enjoy running M+ with friends, but I cannot really express in words at all how I am unable, or find it extremely stressful, to simply ask people “Hey wanna run a key?”. I know it’s silly… I cannot expect people to always come to me and I don’t expect them to. So it’s a catch-22 where I wanna run keys, but I am too petrified to ask anyone to go and no one asks me to go bc I don’t talk much. So I don’t get to do anything haha
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somewhat like rita said but with the “fake” part. no different then irl when i got to deal with majority of the people. they put up a fake front then quick to talk bad behind your back. really aint worth having anxiety over that tbh.
I just don’t bother engaging in things that cause me anxiety (PvP) I know I’m complete garbage at this game. I know every group I join in randoms I’ll be the deadweight that holds everyone back. I just kind of accept it and move on. As for Real life I largely keep to myself. I prefer not to bother people with my problems and that’s fine.
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I wouldn’t want to dehumanize anyone but I can’t think of a better way to put it. There’s no real social cohesion to gain in WoW if there isn’t already cohesion outside of it. IRL I don’t live/work where you do and don’t hang in your IRL social circles, but if I did I wouldn’t be an imaginary friend in WoW.
People forget about that sometimes. It’s rare when it blossoms into a IRL thing. I never got to meet ANY of my guildmates IRL(and I think I should be thankful regarding some).
I ganked the Alliance–my own faction–for years and I’ve gotten plenty of Gucci nastygrams. Threats to harm and kill. That ups the ante when you consider that which is imaginary, despite Blizzard takes that just as serious as if it was in the Real.
Slight perspective change, but you’re also talking about it here, in a much more public setting, this isn’t me trying to be condescending or rude or anything. I think what you can do is just put out the offer in a more general sense. Say it’s the first thing you do when you log on, say hello to everyone and then just say “Hey guys, I’m up for keys whenever you guys are free” Also with anyone on your friends list you can also change your little “announcement thing” note. So you can say you’d be up for keys just send a message.
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For social anxiety, I think it helps to realize how little random people mind your existence. So long as you aren’t obnoxious, people do not mind.
Whether it be joining a group, or going to the grocery store, so long as you aren’t obnoxious, people genuinely don’t bother. Got a question about the dungeon, or you don’t know where to find an item in the store? People will help.
If your anxiety is detrimental to your daily life, you should seek professional help. The best part about socializing in WoW is that you can instantly remove yourself from the situation.
Set goals and expectations. There are far more helpful players than toxic players. Just laugh about the idea that anyone “near my level” is trying to play the game perfectly.
Don’t let others optimize the fun out of your time.
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Honestly, it probably is. I dealt with this end of SL, I was overly critical of my abilities and assumed others felt the same. They didn’t. If they didn’t want to group with you, they wouldn’t try to invite you. I let my unfounded anxiety mess up a few friendships in the game. I don’t have much advice other than try to get out of your bubble, and if you PUG try to grab one of your friends to tag along. Sometimes that helps.
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In a way I have I suppose… I want to run high keys, but I am unable to play the spec for my main that actually does the damage needed to push said keys. So it turned something I enjoyed into something I am unable to do and hate now. Add on to that someone in the guild, great guy mind you and very friendly, that is literally amazing at ANY class he plays… he power leveled an alt of my same class and outperformed everyone else in several runs and they all praised him non-stop for how good he is at the class that I have been maining for 18 years, but am just not able to keep up with it anymore due to age and other issues… it hurt so much haha
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Its a bit freeing when you think “Okay am I ever going to see this person again? No? No need to worry so much then”
I’m not saying ya’ll should go out and be a cringelord thinking no one will bother remembering it or something. Its just a little reminder I give myself that shuts up some of the more naggy anxiety thoughts.
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Exactly. Don’t be cringe and real life is just like WoW – no one talks to you.
Luckily, the case is that every. single. spec. can achieve +20’s. Even last season, Feral was a dumpster spec according to the community and it was doing +25’s and +27’s.
The higher you go, the more those differences matter, ofc. But at +20, those differences literally do not matter. You may have to work harder than some specs, but that’s how it is with literally everything.
Well right now I am not even in a guild… I left their guild again after a night of constantly being ignored and I had spent the day depressed over losing out on all my fun haha. No drama when I left… whispered the GM and thanked him for letting me come back and told him I didn’t feel it was a good fit after all.
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