Feeling a Little Guilty

A quick background story...  It's the Culling of Stratholme instance, normal mode, via the LFG tool, four months ago. One of the party members is a druid from my server.  Much to the chagrin of the other party members, while clearing trash, he starts inquiring about my explorer tabard.  Once the instance is completed, he says he's going to add us to his friends list.  Okay. I add him as well.  I like adding people to my friends list for various reasons, though primarily social. 

I'm doing whatever I'm doing (probably a daily), when I get a whisper from him.  "Want to run VoA 25?"  At this point, I'm still in mostly blue gear with inappropriate stats.  Besides, from what I heard about getting a PUG raid together, just getting a party together can be time consuming.  Time which I didn't have.  I politely declined, and did so several more times.  One time he asked if I wanted to run heroic HoR.  Unfortunately, I can't because I have yet to complete the quest in PoS to unlock it (one day...one day).

The decline that sort of made me think of how I've been blowing this guy off came this past Saturday morning.  I just logged in for a few minutes to check auctions and do the cooking daily before I had breakfast.  As soon as I log in, I get a whisper "want to run normal ToC so I can farm a tanking weapon?".  I could have.  That instance isn't time consuming, and a trinket can possibly drop that I could use.  I just wanted to log in and out, and replied I was only going to be on for 5-10 minutes, which I was.

I felt a little guilty for blowing him off yet again. I also feel like I'm coming off as a jerk. Part of the problem is communication.  He probably assumed I had progressed from point A to B from when we ran CoS a few months back.  I should have been clear with him the first time he asked (which I eventually did), that I am still in the process of gearing up.  If a raid leader saw the gear I had back then, I probably would've been booted.  I also like to have some advance notice.  I admit I'm selfish with my time. Since my free time is spread out over various other hobbies and activities, I allocate time blocks to WoW, and try to keep my playtime confined to said blocks. 

Now I have to think of what I can do to appear helpful to said friend...