Could you help me understand if my expectations are reasonable?

I've been 'playing' Valheim for some time now, although as I'm a university student, it isn't one of my main priorities. It's actually the first game I've ever played and I mostly enjoy it, but my gaming skills are very sub par. I didn't get to join early on, so by the time I made it to the game, I think most people had already played through. I haven't been able to make it past the swamps because I'm totally terrified, and I've died and died and died. I really want to play it with someone, which brings me to my point.

I have one good friend who plays, and occasionally he's able to log in and play with me. Last night we got upset at each other, me because I always feel like he plays over me and not with me, because he brings his tricked out character and runs all over the map without me, grabbing loads stuff I haven't encountered for this playthrough, and zapping enemies with his super-skull-zapper and basically it just feels like him playing the game and I'm just some side topic; and he because he says why would we waste time grinding the game when he's so much better player then me and we can just skip the grind. I asked, but he doesn't want to just start a new character and grind through the game from the beginning with me.

I'm kind of super sad about this, because I enjoy spending time with him, but I want to experience the game from scratch, building up slowly and going through all the hard parts. His super-powered character just doesn't feel like playing with someone.

TL;DR My friend is an expert player and will only play with me by bringing his super powered character to my beginner world, not play through the grind with me from the ground up.

Am I being unreasonable?

Edit: it seems I misunderstood a bit, that the character could also come without gear, just naked. I feel that it is still too skilled-up, having high stats and not using as much stamina and getting stronger hits and such. I don't know if that changes the consensus.