Help, my boyfriend is a WoW addict!

If you've seen those videos of angry, neglected girlfriends deleting their boyfriends' World of Warcraft characters and are tempted to do the same, then stop right there and take a deep breath. There are better ways to handle a WoW addicted boyfriend - here are a few tips on how to deal with the situation before doing anything drastic.

Determine his level of addiction.
Does he sometimes forget to call you back while he's online, or does he ditch you in the middle of an important date or event just to run home and play? Does he still manage to make some time for you, or has WoW taken up 100% of his time? There are different degrees of addiction, and you should figure out how badly your boyfriend is addicted before doing anything else. If he isn't that addicted, then there may be a simple way to get him to keep his addiction in check.

Tell him how you feel.
Have you made him aware that you're feeling bad about his WoW addiction? If you haven't, then you should as soon as possible. Some women go around posting about their WoW-addict boyfriend woes on various forums/websites without even taking the initiative to talk to their boyfriends about it. If you're one of those women, then you should let him know that it hurts when he wastes time killing monsters or hoarding WoW gold when he could have spent that time with you. And remember: talk, don't yell. Starting the conversation off on an angry, screaming note will only result in both of you getting more aggravated and cranky than you should be.

Find a way to compromise.
Face it: even if you do manage to get your feelings across to your boyfriend, it will be extremely difficult (if not impossible) to make your boyfriend quit World of Warcraft completely. You can try having a "schedule" for his WoW game time, just to limit the number of hours he spends on the game. If you're a gamer or at least someone who's willing to give gaming a shot, then maybe you could try to spend some time playing WoW with him too. There are many reasons why people find WoW addictive, and who knows, maybe you'll end up liking the game too. But just be careful not to get addicted like your boyfriend is.

If all else fails, don't delete his characters.
Oh, sure, maybe it was amusing to watch those YouTube videos of guys freaking out or falling apart after their soon-to-be-ex girlfriends deleted their WoW characters. The truth is, doing that is never a good idea. Not only will this make you look extremely mean, it won't really help you, especially if your goal is to simply make him see the error of his ways and not make him go ballistic and break up with you on the spot. Remember that your boyfriend spent time and money increasing his character's level and earning WoW gold, and having what he worked on for months (or even years) disappear just like that is bound to have dire consequences. Another thing to remember is that he may be able to get Blizzard to restore his characters anyway, so all that trouble you went through to sneakily log into his account and delete his characters will just go to waste.