Yesterday, on twitter, I started a small twitter poll, curious to find out if my policy of keeping my World of Warcraft life separate from my offline life was a common occurrence. It was fun to hear from a few folks about the real life meetups they've had with guildies, and how they'd gotten to know players better thanks to being Facebook friends. And still others replied that of course they did, as they didn't have anything to hide.
That latter comment stuck with me for a bit to ponder. Do guildies whom I've politely refused to RealID friend or to share my Facebook info with feel I must have something to hide? I hope not, since that's pretty far from the reason why I don't overlap, except in a tiny number of cases, my gaming life with the rest of my life.
You see, I like to log in to WoW and submerge myself as Anexxia the shadow priest, or Psychocandy the Boomkin. Someone calling me by my real name drags me out of the magical World of Warcraft, and puts back smack dab into every day me. Everyday me works as a digital marketer and manages content, and slogs around a cold and rainy city on transit each day to get to and from work.
Further, even my friends who game (and they are a minority) primarily play console games and have little or no interest in hearing about my WoW adventures, much like the people who unfollow me on twitter after I post about food or some sort of RL event didn't have interest in hearing about things outside of Warcraft from me.
One-on-one, I will talk to guildies and my warcraft buddies about all sorts of RL stuff. But please don't be offended that I don't FB friend you. You'd just be annoyed by all the social gaming SPAM and baby animal pictures anyhow...
:)
This is the point at which I must disclose that I have met a small handfull of guildies IRL over the years. They know my everyday name, have met our crazy cats, and I would friend them on Facebook in a heartbeat if only they used Facebook. But those folks have transcended being my gaming friends -- they are, blessedly, just friends at this point, with whom I'd be just as likely to talk about something tasty I baked as some awesome WoW achievement.
How about you? Are your Warcraft worlds and your Facebook worlds combined?
