Romance in the Raid: Why Guilds Make the Best Chat Rooms

Think about it. What is a chat room?

It’s an online space where people interact with other people who share common interests and experiences. What is an MMORPG guild? It’s an online space where people interact with other people who share common interests and experiences.

Plus, it has video, and everyone is built like a super model. (Well, everyone but the gnomes…)

And as if that weren’t enough, gamers are online at all hours of the day or night, no matter when you might find yourself suddenly feeling lonely, longing for a conversation with someone more responsive than the cat, or just hoping to score that late night “booty call” without the inconvenience of actually leaving your apartment.

You don’t even have to be all that talkative to be a part of it. Even the shyest MMORPG gamer can kill tigers and trolls for hours at a time with that special someone and use the built-in game emotes to look cool… and funny… and clever… and romantic.

/love

/flirt

/grin

/blush

/moan (Yes, that’s a real one in World of Warcraft. Try it.)

/marry

Wait, marry? What? Yes, it happens. Two of our own guild members who met playing World of Warcraft got married recently. We even used a PayPal donation account to take up voluntary contributions, and the guild sent them a real life wedding present. Your life mate could be a click and a download away!

Non-gamers may scoff, but before you write off this possibility as ridiculous, think for a moment about some of the worst pitfalls of modern dating that gamers manage to avoid completely.

Did things move too fast with someone who is now acting a little creepy? Ignore list! Problem solved! Do you have a pattern of sleeping with new love interests before you really get to know them? Not going to happen online! You can even get stark raving drunk together and the worst that can happen is your screen will get blurry. No poor decision making! No miserable office hangovers!

So if you’re looking for love and you haven’t found the right person, consider trying an MMORPG. Choose one you like the look of, and right there you have at least one thing in common with every other person playing it.

Then you can become an integral part of a progression raiding team and refuse to play without your favorite mage, adding that extra spice of challenge to your raid leader’s life. Or you can decide suddenly that you are no longer speaking to that warlock who was so sexy just a week ago, leaving your ten-man team down two people at the last minute…

But the special challenges of the poor sap who manages the chat room–oops, I mean the guild–is a topic for another day. For now, just sit back and imagine the joy of finding that special someone and spending the rest of your beautiful lives together.

You can team up to kill bad guys and save the world (without any of that annoying sweat or fear, not to mention poor hygiene facilities) and at the end of the day you can come back to real life, get married and live happily ever after.

If that isn’t a classic romance novel come to life, I don’t know what is.

Image courtesy of stockimages / FreeDigitalPhotos.net