Noooo!!! Not World of Warcraft! You need to have an intervention, or give him an ultimatum. I’m serious. He’s being a terrible boyfriend, and you are being neglected. But he does live across the country.. How old are you both?

You should play computer games with him.
It’s obviously a big part of his life. Yes, there is a point at which there is too much. But if you’re not a gamer, you may not be in the right relationship.

@Sarcasm I have been playing WoW with him but my trial account ends tonight and he refuses to come out of Dota long enough to play with me or even pay an ounce of attention to me.

@Xxena I have some ideas that might be of interest to you. Maybe you could PM me here or we can talk on the phone, if you like. I feel very badly for your situation and would be more than glad to hear what you have to say. Maybe a shoulder is just the thing you need right now.

Just let me know how I can help. I’m here for you.

@Violet To answer your question, I’m 15 and he’s 17. (So there’s an age difference, big fricken deal)

@Xxena Never mind.

@Xxena that’s not why I asked. You are both minors, and in high school, and you have a long distance relationship. Do you think it’s going to last?!
I think, “he’s just not that into you”

I have to agree with @Violet. Have you two ever actually met?

@mrentropy that is a very good point

@mrentropy yes actually we have met, we were together for a while before he moved back to his original hometown.

@Xxena Fair enough. It seems that distance has tempered his fire somewhat.

My wife has the same problem with me. However, it’s not all computer-based since I am also into pen-and-paper gaming as well. (To all of those who think that all gaming requires consoles or computers, crack a history book sometime :P)

However, even the people I game with consider WoW to be evil. It is crack, pedophilia, and cancer rolled into one.

If it bothers you that much and you don’t want to play along or find something else to do, I suggest you find someone else. Sorry, but you can’t change his ways.

@jonsblond My wife ran off and joined a 4th edition D&D group to spite me (I depise 4th ed. D&D)

@jerv at least it wasn’t Farmville. ;)

ugh farmville!

@Violet Maybe I should give him an ultimatum. After all, he did make me delete my Twitter account simply because he hates Twitter with a passion.

@Xxena Anybody with half a brain hates Twitter with a passion :P
I mean, I understand the control issue element to it, but TWITTER?! Why does Twitter even exist?

@Xxena that’s psycho of him..

@Xxena I don’t normally give advice and I wouldn’t take my own advice but maybe a better way would be to spend less time online. Or less time trying to get his attention online. When he starts questioning you on it tell him you’ve been spending time with friends and what not.

I don’t know him, obviously, but he sounds kind of self-absorbed and controlling.

@jerv That’s what I said at first but then it became one of the few ways I have to connect with my friends cuz I’m homeschooled and there never really online when I am.

My boyfriend has an account, but he has two part time jobs and he goes to uni, so he barely plays it. All his buddies play it and they have Lan parties sometimes, but he says that even if he had more free time, he’s getting bored of it.

Not a real fan I guess, people who play this never get bored. XD

@Xxena I feel your pain. I’m a girl and I used to play WoW a lot. If I dated someone and they weren’t judgmental about it, they scored major points. Especially if they were interested enough to play the game with me. Generally if someone’s addicted to an RPG, nothing another person does or says will make them quit- they just have to do it on their own. If you’re really sucked into a game, and someone else is asking you to pay attention to them, even if they’re right and you’re wrong, it just sounds like nagging and whining. Sorry to say that. That’s why gamers have a hard time getting/ keeping SO’s… nobody wants to put up with that shit for long.

About the Twitter thing. My knee-jerk reaction is that Twitter is really stupid because people post their most fluffy and inane thoughts, but it sounds like you have a legitimate reason to use it. Your boyfriend can’t “make” you do anything from across the country. This is one issue where you really need to stand up to him.

The other part of the problem is that you’re homeschooled and you have a tough time getting in touch with your friends. This probably means that you’re lonely, because you can’t see your friends, and you might have extra spare time on your hands. It feels like your boyfriend never pays attention to you because he has a hobby (even though it’s an unhealthy one) that sucks up all his time and energy. He probably even has friends in the game. Meanwhile, maybe he’s one of the few people you can get in touch with. You should see if you can pick up some after school activities or become more active in one of your hobbies, and ask if your schedule can be more normal so you can see more of your friends. If you have a lot of time on your hands and make a lot of effort to see a person, it can just make them pull away more because they feel pressured. You might also just decide that it isn’t worth your while to have such a self-absorbed boyfriend who is all the way across the country. He sounds immature even for a seventeen year old. There are probably plenty of more considerate guys with better hobbies right in your hometown.

I am a self confessed WoW addict… + Fluther addict. I still make sure I make enough time for my SO as he means a lot to me.

Your boyfriend will ultimately do what it is he wants to do. If you feel he is not making an effort to spend quality time with you (however this is done in your relationship) and you have voiced these concerns to no resolve… several things are possible:

a) He is finding it difficult to connect emotionally in a long distance situation and is turning to his hobbies in your absence (the MSN thing isn’t holding up quite like a real face to face experience).

b) He’s not that into you. Not meaning to be cruel, just sometimes the truth, and may not be the case in this instance either. Just a possibility.

c) He really really likes gaming and basically likes it more than maintaining your relationship to the level you require.

d) That you and he are different and possibly not suited.

e) Your expectations are not met by what he is prepared to give at this stage of your lives or in your set of circumstances.

@Sarcasm I agree.

My wife is into WoW and got me into WoW. We enjoy our time there. However, it does not always work out that way.

Another problem is, from what I see, if a person is a hardcore gamer and their s/o is not only a hardcore gamer but likes the same games, it is not going to work. My wife quit WoW for a long time until I decided, on my own, to try it so our time would not be interrupted by the game and, to this day, we are nowhere near “hardcore.”

@Xxena You said that you tried WoW with him but he is too immersed in all games? He sounds like he, basically, lives the games.

Truly, from what I have seen firsthand in WoW and from friends I have lost to WoW (there have been a couple, even after starting the game myself) and everything I read, gaming can be an addiction for people. He might not be the right guy for you. These games become their life.

I have not read all of this answer but got enough to know that you are in a long distance relationship, having met a time or so. That is going to make this even more difficult.

Have you told him, flat out, that this is not working? If you have, he promises to change, and cannot, well, it is not going to work.

From outside, it is difficult to give any specific advice. The main question here is what do you mean exactly when you say “he spends so much time playing that he has no time for you”—is it the case that he really never has time to talk to you, or is it rather that he does have time, but not as much as you would like?

As a gamer married to a gamer, I can tell you that there is pretty much nothing as frustrating as someone trying to hog your attention when you are trying to play, except for trying to talk to someone when they are playing and cannot spare the attention. ;)

Solution is do not try to do both at the same time. Talk to him about it, and agree with him that when he is playing, you will let him play and not pester him on MSN, if in turn he will concentrate on talking to you when you two are spending time together (online or otherwise).

Several things can happen after that agreement.

The best outcome is that you both become happier, because you will actually concentrate on each other when you talk to each other, and he will get some quality gaming time when he does not need to feel guilty about not responding to you, and you will not feel bad about him not responding to you right now if he is busy, because you know there’s going to be another “date” soon. (Yes, you can actually have “online dates”, agreed times when you talk to each other for an hour or couple of hours, share news and links and so forth. I highly recommend that instead of expecting each other to respond all the time.)

A possible bad outcome is that you find that he will spend all his time gaming, and not dedicate any to you. This would probably speak of a “gaming addiction” (which I do not think is a real addiction, but a problem with his life being less appealing than the games, or a problem of self-control, but that’s beside the point), in which case, he being so young, I would actually suggest you express your worry to his parents or any friends of his you know who live close to him.

Another possible less optimal outcome is that he will give you some of his time, but not enough for to make you happy. This would speak of an incompatibility between you two, and you would then have to decide if you can be happy with that sort of relationship, or if you wish to move on.

Despite the possibility of less than happy outcomes, I would argue that you still want to talk to him and try and arrive an an agreement of time usage, because if he has a gaming problem or if there is an incompatibility, you will want to know now, so you can draw your conclusions and act from an informed basis.

EDITed to add: “made you” close your Twitter account? How exactly did he make you, and from the other side of the country too?

As a guy who plays WoW and lots of video games i have to admit ive had gf’s i straight up ignored while i would play.

What girls dont understand is how engrossed you become in these games, the social aspect and the need for concentration. My gf texts/calls while im playing its hard to try and stay on the phone with her when im also trying to not die/doing something i want to finish.

Now a days i dont let the games get in way of anything with my relationship, ill play for the little off time i can and then im out the house.

Consider this addiction like you would any other – it is affecting his life in that it is affecting you enough…if he doesn’t care to change his ways, then he doesn’t consider you important enough, because otherwise he would…and really, do you really want to be in a relationship with someone that considers the fantasy world more important? clearly all their needs are being met, in some twisted fashion, through those games…I’ve known plenty of gamers, they’re passionate about it, guess it’s good to have passion about something…I’ve never been with a gamer, though, so I don’t know what I’d do but I would certainly not be okay with not spending time with them…they better put me, a live human being, ahead of a hobby

@Simone_De_Beauvoir You nailed it on the head.

My wife got into WoW, really enjoyed it, but quit when I was not interested because that took her time away from me.

Years later I told her that I would like to try it. I got a trial account, gave it a whirl, and we play it as an addition to, rather than a substitution for our lives. If either of us decides to quit, the other one is as well. If it ever interferes with our lives, we quit… this has been discussed because we know of the addictiveness of the game. @Jerv is right: WoW is kind of like mmorpg (I think that is what it is called) cocaine.

I have lost friends to WoW both out and in the game. I see people come onto WoW, acting like normal people, then the addiction hits and they are no longer who I once knew. All that matters is WoW.

@JesusWasAJewbot That actually happens?
I’ve played WoW on and off for years (presently, off), with hardcore raiding in there. I never ignored people. Sure, if I was in the middle of killing a raid boss (well, healing the people who were killing it), I’d have a response delayed by a few minutes. But I’d never ignored people.

At my peak, I would sneak on to WoW even when friends came over to visit. I would eventually get caught and promise to just “Hand in this quest” or “Just kill X number of mobs etc” and that then I would joint them… but only realised that I had been rude and self-serving when my partner was saying goodnight and I was yelling goodnight to them from my computer.Oh the shame of it, I am a 26 year old woman!

I no longer behave like this with some self reflection and some priority re-evaluating.

To those of you who’ve asked how he made me delete my Twitter account, maybe saying it like that was a little harsh. I know I said he made me, but honestly what he did was ask me in a video chat. I can’t resist his puppy face, it’s just too cute. (Yes I’m that weak)

@JesusWasAJewbot Some girls do get it. It is not boys vs girls, it is gamers vs non-gamers. There’s girls who play (and women who play), too.

To everyone: please separate between the type of “ignoring” that @Rachienz talks about, which is a problem, and the type of “ignoring” that is “not answering to someone’s chatter while playing”, which is just sensible, as long as there’s also enough times when the attention is away from the hobbies and on the husband/wife/whatever.