I found the deepest relationship of my life on a sexting subreddit. About a year ago I couldn’t sleep and ended up on a sexting subreddit. I was in my deadend town where I knew nobody, I hadnt even been hugged in months, I hadnt even felt like I existed for weeks. I was horny and desperately lonely. All it took was me posting my gender and age. I was looking for a quick moment to forget again. Anonymous, temporary, safe. He DM’d me. I sifted him out of the flood of disturbing creeps that messaged me. Male, age, dick size. Thats how it started. I told him I hadnt sexted someone I didnt know before, he understood. He let me ask him questions – I was questioning a few at first. He was the one that stuck. He was from the other side of my country, familiar but a safe distance. He was nerdy, a little sporty, actually enjoyed my stupid jokes. I don’t even remember if we sexted that first night. But we talked. For hours. We moved to Telegram and stayed up all night. Then it kept going. Every day for three months. All day, all night. We called. Planned little online “dates” where we’d both sit down with a drink at the same time like it was real. We sent each other songs that reminded us of each other. Talked about our insecurities, our dreams, anything but our real names and faces. I think thats what made it possible for it to be the most honest and vulnerable I have ever been with someone, and yet feel the safest. He sent me a necklace for Christmas. I wore it every day until my fear of tarnishing it made me stop.
I wanted it to stay exactly the same forever. To remind me someone could know all the worst parts of me and have no benefit to talking to me, but still want to everyday.
He would leave his ringer on so that I could call and wake him up at 3am, just to talk. I never told anyone about him. He was my best-kept secret. Life was hitting me from every direction and I think I believed that if I hid this, it couldn’t be ruined. It was the one soft, safe thing I had. Because my real life was falling apart. I was already struggling with my mental health. I worked humiliating shifts as a Christmas elf in a grimy hotel for under minimum wage. I was being harassed by drunk old men, broke, overdrafted, back at my parents’, with one friend in that whole town, worked late night parties and breakfast shifts and slept through any sunlight for months. Then my dog died. People will either get it or they wont. He was my first real adult decision. I raised him from the terrified diseased bony rescue into my big cuddly baby. He died shaking in my arms. It felt like losing my child.
The grief tipped me over a steep edge. I completely unraveled. My depression went from bad to severe. I felt so degraded, lonely, worthless. He tried to support me. He told me that the moment I said the word he would drive all night to my town. So much of me wanted him to, but was afraid if he met me in person he would finally see all the reasons I hated myself and understand them. That he would realise how pathetic I was. That he would stop seeing the girl he had in his head, and start seeing the one vacuuming cold scrambled eggs off of stained carpets while sticky from spilt beer. That he would smell that on me. See my childhood bedroom with the curtains drawn at midday and piles of dirty laundry covering the floor. Feel the chunks of my hair missing from when it got caught on a candle at work, and the burnt remains. See the me that I saw everyday in the mirror. I was having a breakdown. I was afraid and vulnerable and lost and I blocked him on everything.
Telegram, Duolingo, Reddit. On reddit I then deleted my account and disappeared. The loneliness that made me go to that subreddit ended up swallowing me whole. Months went by. I went to therapy. Got medicated. Changed jobs. Slowly, over time, I got better. I’m stable now. Still in therapy. Depression is mild, but not severe anymore. For months I built up the courage to message him. In June I finally tried. Telegram was all I had left where I could still see his blocked account. The last messages were him trying to support me.
I sent a message. It bounced. I couldn’t contact him. I took it as a sign. I met someone new later – someone good on paper, someone my friends liked. But all I could think about was him.A year later, I still can’t move on. I’ve tried everything to find him. His usernames were always random words and numbers. I spent hours scrolling reddit and Duolingo searching accounts with the one word i remember being in his automatic random usernames. I appealed the limitations on my telegram. I searched LinkedIn for anyone from his area with a similar job. I couldn’t find him. I couldnt reach him. I finally have a good job. A real one.
Somewhere people say good morning to me. Somewhere I feel like a person. Im finally someone capable of being, and I wish I was with him. I wish more than anything that he could just know that. That I’m okay now. That his support mattered. That he helped keep me alive in the darkest time of my life. That I didn’t disappear because I stopped caring – I disappeared because I was terrified and falling apart. And I regret it more than I know how to explain. I wish there was a way he could know I still think he is the best person I have ever met, even without having met him.
