Why I don't enjoy PvP

I'll admit it; I'm a carebear. I have a set of PvP gear left over from my Wintergrasp phase, but for the most part, I don't enjoy PvP. It's not because I don't enjoy PvP gameplay itself. I know a lot of PvP'ers think that us carebears don't enjoy PvP because it's actually a challenge, but if that were the reason, we wouldn't raid either. I quite enjoyed the challenge of PvP, since no two players ever fight the exact same way. Each battle is always different, and the thrill of it lies in the unpredictability.

But I digress. There is one reason that I don't enjoy PvP'ing, and it's more of a matter of principle than anything. Though I enjoyed PvP after I had gotten good at it, those days when I was just starting were really rough. I was always dying, and each death meant at least 30 seconds when I wasn't involved in the battle. In Wintergrasp, those 30 seconds could easily become two minutes in the right situations. Those were two minutes of me not being able to contribute to the fight at all, gain any honor, or have any fun. And those deaths happened a lot.

As I got better gear and became more skilled in the art of warfare, I began to die less often and actually be able to kill some players in fair battles. This should have been enjoyable, but those deaths I suffered back when I was starting out had done their damage. I realized that every time I killed an opponent in PvP, I was denying someone else that minute of action, of honor, of fun. All the things I didn't enjoy about PvP, I was now inflicting on someone else. That was my definition of victory: preventing another player from enjoying themselves. PvP in my opinion can best be defined as having fun by preventing another player from having fun.

Perhaps I'm just spoiled by PvE, but I find cooperative gameplay to be a lot more fun than competitive gameplay. In cooperative gameplay like raids, everyone has fun as long as everyone does their jobs. It's a win-win situation. Even if someone doesn't get gear from the encounter, they still get emblems and the satisfaction of killing someone more powerful than them. In PvP, however, every time someone wins, someone else needs to lose. I'm sure there are people who can walk away from a defeat, use it as motivation to play better next time, and be that much more satisfied when they do win, but I'm not one of those people.

Short post, I know, but there isn't a whole lot of explanation needed, really. Keep in mind that I am not saying anything against PvP; I'm just offering my reasons for not liking PvP so that maybe you PvP'ers can realize why we PvE'ers don't enjoy your part of the game.