March 2006, my work mate and eventual flat mate raved about this new game she was playing called “WoW” and told me about how amazing it was, and how I should try it. Intrigued, I went out and bought a copy, and created an account.
Following her suggestions, I made myself a night elf hunter, and wandered around exploring the world. After falling off the World Tree, and being too embarrassed to ask for help, I deleted the hunter, and spent the next few months creating different characters before settling on a human priest.
While levelling in Feralas with my flat mate, and her new friend she’d met in Duskwood, I met a dwarf priest who would completely change my world. At first, it was just game advice – I was the very definition of a “newb”, and he was a seasoned player with a whole stable of characters. Then, it was personal discussion. I was going through a very messy break up, and all of my “IRL” friends were mutual friends. My new dwarf buddy was on the other side of the world, and somehow that made it so easy to talk to him. We used to spend hours talking in game, and eventually, on Skype.
And then the day that changed everything. We were in Eastern Plaguelands, my priest, and his druid, trying to get me to level cap before the expansion. As usual, we were mucking around with emotes while chatting away on Skype. We were heading to the mausoleum with the zombie trolls, when he emoted /love. Both of us sat in shock for a couple of minutes, while zombie trolls ate our characters.
After talking it over though, we decided to see what would happen. The biggest stumbling block in our way, was obviously the fact that he was living in the States, while I was in Australia. Neither of us really had the money for travelling, so our relationship, at first, stayed completely on-line. Eventually, we’d both saved up enough to be able to pay for airfares.
He came here first, and I will never forget that first meeting in the airport. Hugging him was like coming home. Somewhere that was safe and warm. We had an amazing two weeks, me showing him around my city, and then flying to another major city to visit guildies. The day he had to leave was horrible. We clung to each other at the airport, and swore we’d figure out a way to see each other soon.
After researching, and finding out that the maximum time either of us could visit on a travel visa was three months, we decided that since I was only temping, and he had a full time job, I’d be the one to go stay with him for the three months.
I arrived just before Halloween, 2008. Seeing him again was wonderful, and we spent the first couple of days just wrapped in each other. He surprised me with a trip to Florida to go to Disney and Universal Studios just before Thanksgiving. And then surprised me further at Disney by getting down on one knee in front of Cinderella’s Castle – after arranging with a staff member to take photos of the event! The remainder of my stay was just as wonderful – we cooked together, cleaned together, and of course, gamed together.
The hardest part was what came next. After some pretty deep discussion, we decided that he’d come to Australia – and we started the long, torturous process of getting his Visa. The wait for certain reports was the worst, and it took a long time before he would receive approval. We coped as best we could, emailing, texting and spending as much time talking on Skype as possible. We managed to afford two trips to see each other before, finally, in February 2010, he received word that his Visa was granted.
We married in July 2010, and in July 2013 welcomed our beautiful little boy into the world. As I type this, I’m watching them both, sitting cuddled on the lounge.
He might not play anymore, having got bored late last year and moving on to other games, but I will always be thankful to World of Warcraft for completing my world.
Published: Nov 4, 2014 01:06 pm