I think I’ve fallen in love with a woman online whom I’ve never actually met. Deep down, I know it’s not real but rather something built out of loneliness and longing.

Her name is Gwen. We talk on Instagram, mostly about manga, anime, and all the little nerdy things that make me feel seen for a moment. She’s kind, funny, and easy to talk to but I know in my heart that what I feel isn’t really love. It’s more like a desperate longing, something born out of loneliness and pain.

After my brother disowned me, something inside me cracked. He was one of the few people I thought would always be there for me, and when he walked away, it felt like the ground vanished under my feet. Since then, I’ve been trying to hold myself together, but the silence he left behind is deafening. It’s this emptiness that makes me reach out to Gwen again and again, even when I know she doesn’t feel the same way. I latch onto every small interaction, every emoji, every shared opinion about a manga series, because it feels like proof that I still matter to someone even if it’s just a stranger behind a screen.

My sister doesn’t make it any easier. She keeps telling me that the only reason I want to move out of Boston is to chase Gwen, as if I’m throwing away my life for some fantasy. But that’s not it. I’m not chasing Gwen I’m running from the version of myself that’s been stuck here, drowning in memories and rejection. I know how it looks from the outside, but I don’t even want to meet Gwen in person. The thought fills me with shame. I hate myself for feeling this way about her, for turning my loneliness into something that feels wrong.

It’s not about Gwen it never really was. It’s about needing to feel connected after losing the people who were supposed to love me unconditionally. It’s about fear fear of being alone forever, fear that I’m unworthy of love, fear that if someone truly saw me, they’d walk away too. Gwen just became the vessel for all of that, the person I projected my hope onto. And I know it isn’t fair to her, or to me.

I think the truth is that I’m not in love with Gwen. I’m in love with the idea that someone might finally care about me that someone might look past the broken parts and still stay. But I’m scared that no one ever will.