Found a guild

have been looking around a little on the server for guilds that matches my LFGuild ad, and found none. Too hardcore (required to be online and raid 3-4-5 days a week, several hours a day? No thanks), too immature (pwnzor? No thanks), too patronizing (demeaning rank names for new members? No thanks), too repulsive (guildleaders with public avatars describing sexual practises for the slightly more advanced? No thanks).

Well, there was this one guild that was a pretty good match, not perfect but close enough. Problem was, it was the one I left some months ago… and I was pretty convinced I would not get an invite back… and if against all hope I did get an invite, would I get burned out and leave again?

It wouldn’t be fair to my friends to join them (if they would let me) just to go running off again after some time.

So why did I feel so miserable before, miserable enough to make me leave all the sweet people in that guild and go on alone for months?

The reason I left when I did was because of some disagreements with one of my fellow officers that just got to me too much, but I’ve realised since that that was just the last straw, the top of the ice berg, and not by a long shot the one and only reason. Our disagreement wasn’t even a major reason, it was just the last tiny drop that made the glass of irritation and annoyance overflow.

I do not want to raid lead, have never wanted to. During a period of some weeks, our usual raid leaders were mostly offline for various reasons and I had been trying to keep some raiding going to not lose people. Yes, there were other people to help me, but I still felt it was my responsibility, and I hated it.

Also, when we did raid (with or without me as raid leader) the raids were too often starting late because people did not respect the start times, with new people needing to be hand-held throughout every encounter and other people going afk, making everyone wait and things like this.

There were a lot of new members in the guild due to the recruiting to fill our raid groups. It took a lot of administration time to get the new ones set up with forum and ts accounts, addon helping, general explaining and question-answering.

Also, some of the new ones were downright nasty disgusting asshats and dealing with them took a lot of time and energy. (Thankfully, they are no longer in the guild).

And ofc there were a lot of members that had been with us for some time who had promotions coming up or being overdue, and interviewing these people and discussing their promotions also took a lot of time and energy.

I guess I could have said something earlier, but I just didn’t realise how much all the raid and guild admin stress was getting to me, didn’t understand what my almost constant irritation and crankiness meant until it was too late and I just had to leave.

(To be fair, my leaving was not in any way preceded by two months of unbearable horrors, I had so much fun too, but it was getting to a point where the stress and frustration just took the fun out of anything and everything I did. I was in way over my head and I was drowning.)

There are two types of persons, I am told. There are those that thrive on socialising, who gain energy from being with other people and are lonely and depressed when left on their own.

I am the other kind of person. Although I enjoy being social when I so choose, I reload my batteries and gain energy when I am alone, doing my thing on my own in my own pace. I like this time for myself, I need this time, and if I don’t get it I will be miserable. Irritated, cranky, going into sour-mode, annoyed with anything and anyone.

Last (but not least, this stuff is important), I had been more or less ill for a long time, colds and sniffles followed by the flu followed by pneumonia… The winter of 07/08 was not a fun time for me. This also rendered me completely unable to exercise as much as I used too, since I started wheezing and coughing just by climbing the stairs to our top floor at home, and I never got to use working out as a way of ridding me of all negative stress and pent-up irritation.

Fast forward to now, two months after I left, having been free of all obligations game-wise (real or imagined), having played and had fun with some of my friends (yes, most of them from my old guild), I feel good again, I am happy, I work out regularly, I play a lot and I have fun while playing.

So, all things considered (including some other AFK issues that I won’t discuss here), I think I will like it in my old guild a lot (again) and stay on the safe side of burn-out if I take a few precautions:
- I don’t want any officering or anything resembling it. I’ll play, chat, run instances and raids, help out and ask for help but I’ll leave the decision-making and leadership to those who enjoy that, I’ll just sit back and relax and accept whatever comes my way with a smile.
- I’ll join with my 70’s only and keep the little girls unguilded to make sure I get my “cave time”.
- I’ll sign up for raids only if I feel ready for it.
- I’ll keep working out as much as I do now, because I like it and because I want that glorious endorphine rush and because it makes me so much more mellow and relaxed.

Well, finding out why I was miserable and how to avoid feeling so again was just the first part…

The second part was to actually apply to my old guild again…

A quick check of which guild members were online made me realise it has grown a bit since I left it. I didn’t recognize half the names, but they still label themselves not as a raiding guild, but as a social guild of RL and online friends, who find most aspect of WoW game play fun, including raids. (Their guild charter is the one I wrote when I was still there, so no wonder it appeals to me ;P. Or maybe they just haven’t gotten around to change it.)

Writing the application was easy, since they are considerate enough to have an example application to help to new applicants, which just so happens to be written by yours truly a long time ago. I copied it, updated the parts that needed to be updated and posted it.

And then I felt sick. What had I done? Can’t remove or edit posts at the forum if you are not registered, so there was no going back for me, but I was terrified of being thrown back to the wolves after having faced my own inner demons and posted on a public forum like this. “Here I am, this is my application, please don’t kill me.”

I went for a long invigorating run, sweating away the dread and nausea and anxiety. Silly, really, to feel so nervous about an application to a game, but that’s how it was.

I didn’t log in that evening, and I was pretty nervous when I checked in on my app the day after and saw that there were replies. Several replies, in fact.

Have you seen the Disney film Mulan? It’s about a Chinese girl at the time of the Mongolian invasion, when every family is required to send a man to the army to help fight the invaders. Mulan borrows her father’s gear and sneaks off into the night, masquerading as the young boy Ping, enlisting in the army as a representative of her family to spare her frail father.

In China, at this time (might be so still for all I know of China), passing yourself off as a man was punishable by death, no trial, no jury, just a quick blow with the axe, so her father dares not come get her and expose her deceit. Of course, Mulan turns out to be a very resourceful young girl and almost single-handedly defeats the entire Hunn army, saves the emperor and makes the handsome young prince fall in love with her (after he discovers she’s a girl).

Anyways, when she’s done saving the empire she returns home, bringing gifts from the emperor. She cautiously approaches her father as he sits by the creek down in their garden and kneels before him, holding the emperor’s gifts up to him as she looks down, not daring to face his being angry her for running away. But her father just lights up when he sees her, falls to his knees too, throws the emperor’s gifts to the side and hugs her.

This scene always makes me smile and feel warm at heart, and this is how I felt when I read the replies.

The people who posted were people I knew from before, and have talked to and played with since I left, and they all expressed unconditional joy and happiness for my wanting to come back to them! Enter, that warm fuzzy happy glow and silly smile, I will not cry, I will most definitely not cry! Oh bugger! Ah well, tears of joy are a good thing :-)

What have I done to deserve this? But then I realise, it’s not about me, it’s about them. These people are truly nice and genuinely sweet and would be happy to welcome back any prodigal son (or daughter).

They are people with big hearts, and I am really glad to be back with them.