Hi, I was just surfing through the web and found this website, and I felt like I need to share my story and get something off my chest, or maybe get some advice (I already feel like an asshole about what I did but…here it goes).

This is the first time I’m ever talking about it. My story began in 2018. I had just turned eighteen when I joined this chat website and decided to find some friends since I had lost contact with most of my real-life friends ever since we graduated from high school. But…there was a problem. I know it sounds dumb as hell and everything, at least now I’m aware of it kinda, but I was so insecure to let people know about the country I’m from. Most people would assume it’s just a deserted place with no technology and, worst of all, that we are terrorists, which is ALL WRONG. God, that sounds extremely stupid and hideous looking back on it. I tried to be real at first, but whenever people messaged me and we talked for a bit, they’d say I’m really nice to talk to and ask where I’m from, and when I told them, they were like ”oh, ok” and the conversation would just kinda die, or change to some political topic, or I’d get bullied at some point which really hurt. Oh, not to mention the part where they’d ask ”so are your people at war right now” like dude can you stop listening to BBC and Fox News for one fking min and quit making assumptions… I like my country. But things are messed up economically; it’s the government that’s made the world have a negative look at us and think of us as the ”bad guys”. So in short, people are good, government is bad, but the world only sees the government and negative claims, no thanks to the media.

At some point, it became so exhausting trying to explain all that to people online, most of whom were just trolls I wanted to be friends with, and now I’d have to explain political stuff like no, I’m just here to chill, not have a heated conversation about that kind of thing. And my anxiety and depression had gotten pretty bad at the time. All I wanted was friends who would lift each other and have fun together, not talking about politics and crap. So I was like ”screw it, we’re just gonna be online friends; this won’t carry on to real life. Besides, if it does, I’ll probably be moving to Europe in a while (which is true, by the way).” I grew up in a semi-American household despite the general culture most people around me are involved with.

Eventually, I forgot about the whole chat thing but got back on it around Jan 2020. I was busy with school, and there was no one I could talk to. So I decided to make friends this time, and whenever someone asked where I’m from, I said *America*. I don’t think of myself as an ”American wanna-be” but it’s the culture and place I relate to most. I tried to be totally honest about everything else like my pictures, my major in college, hobbies, family, basically everything except that. I know it was wrong, and I shouldn’t have done it, and there’s no excuse for my actions, but I still did it. And to be honest, I found an amazing group of friends. We moved from the chat site to Discord, and we had a group chat and would talk every day about everything. And that was also around the time COVID just happened, so it was pretty cool to have these people to hang out with while we were stuck in lockdown.

Now all this happened about a year ago, so obviously a lot happened, and the group chat fell apart eventually since each of us moved on with our lives. I still talk to a couple of them, one of whom I also…dated online…for almost a month and a half. This is where things get really real. I didn’t really plan on lying to him about it too. I think he saw a screenshot of my laptop once, and I was looking through some colleges in the US. He asked in the group chat if I was from x state, and someone said ”yes,” and I said no lol, but he probably thought I was joking. I wish I could PM him and told him it wasn’t true, but I didn’t have the guts. That’d mean I could potentially lose all my friends in that group chat, and he was also the mod of that chat site, so I just couldn’t do it. Somehow it didn’t seem like a big deal to me that he thinks I’m American anyway. I sometimes felt guilty in the back of my mind anyway, but I tried to shrug it off.

He was also dating this girl at the time who was actually from the US. They met through the chat site, and I became good friends with her on Discord and tried to always be there for her just like how I supported her boyfriend. She considered me as her *best friend* at the time, and I was genuinely so happy for them both. The whole thing was so wholesome. She was in boarding school, and since it was a long-distance relationship, she couldn’t talk to her boyfriend as much. Oh, and only a couple of weeks into graduating, she found some guy in her school and left her boyfriend. Months later, he told me this was her third time cheating on him, which I’m speechless about.

I really felt bad for him after she broke up with him, not in a pity way, I genuinely cared about him like…he’s perfect. He’s not the type of person to show emotions very often, but I knew it really hurt him. Hell, even I cried for him. I tried to be there for him, and we talked almost every day. I consider him as one of my best friends to this day, and he’s also one of the reasons I didn’t take away my life on one summer night, but I didn’t tell him that till months after, the night he was gonna do the same thing. He means a lot to me. At the time, it wasn’t romantic…yet. It wasn’t supposed to get to that level, ever, but tbh neither of us figured how we actually ended up dating.

He was my first boyfriend, and looking back on it, I couldn’t ask for a better person. We both agreed it was the most relaxing thing ever, us talking throughout the day and making each other laugh no matter how bad things would get. It was the first time I ever let my guard down and fell for a guy, not just a crush. But it’s crazy how you can fall for someone through your screen, and this is coming from someone who never believed in that kind of thing. How you can develop feelings for someone thousands of miles away from you. We fell for each other’s souls; I think that’s why we still remained best friends even after breaking up. But I knew I didn’t deserve him. I was nothing but a liar after all, and I began to hate myself for it more and more every day. He trusted me I’d never cheat on him, which I never did but…I didn’t deserve that trust.

When we first got together, I didn’t think much of it. I had never been in a relationship before, either online or in real life. It was immature and stupid of me, but it was something so new to me. I grew up in a family where I’d see my parents go off at each other and at me and my brother to this day. I always thought love is non-existent. I never knew how it feels to love someone without the fear of them abusing you verbally or physically until…him. It might just look like a stupid simple online friendship, but the truth is, we saved each other.

It didn’t last long though. His ex got cheated on with her new boyfriend and decided to get back with his previous boyfriend who was in a relationship at the time…which didn’t seem to matter to her. He told me he couldn’t tell her it was me he was dating because she considered me as her friend and it’d probably hurt her. It didn’t matter to me at first, but then she started harassing him on a daily basis, begging him to get back with her. I felt so guilty at the time because I thought I stole something that belonged to her. Little did I know, neither of us really deserved him anyway. I began to lose sleep over it. I was mentally messed up and thought he’d eventually get back with her, that he never really loved me at all, not that I deserved it anyway. I didn’t want to follow my goals anymore. Whenever he mentioned her name, I’d practically lose it. I had to get out of that messy situation. It finally hit me I had lied to him about something big, and I had to stop it before it gets any deeper, though I was already too involved. So I told him I wanna take a break, and we can be friends in the meantime if he wants to.

But that didn’t change anything between us. We practically continued talking every day, as if we just can’t get enough of each other. I don’t know if this makes any sense, but we got more comfortable with each other, as friends. We enjoyed each other’s conversations and silence.

Until after a while, I knew he was going through stuff. I knew his ex was manipulating him again, even if he didn’t tell me till it was over, but I knew it. He was mentally drained too, not only because of relationship problems, it was work, his depression no one knew of at the time, everything.

Until that damned day came up finally…the day I just happened to be busy and sick myself most of the day, but I felt uneasy about him. I was worried sick for no reason, so I messaged him, and he just said ”I feel so broken right now. But don’t worry, the pain will go away soon.” My heart skipped a beat. He had practically lost it. I contacted his friend who knows him in real life, and he tried getting a hold of him, but he wouldn’t answer; his family was calling him, still no answer, barely replying to my PM. I was losing it. He took off to the bridge that was near his house, one of his last messages saying ”…the pain will end soon,” while it was raining cats and dogs. It literally took me everything I have in me to convince him to go back home. Even now writing about it makes me shake uncontrollably and cry. I don’t know how I did it. I don’t think of myself as a ”strong” person. I had never been in a situation like that before. TBH I tried to forget about what happened during those few hours, but I remember typing with shaky hands and teary eyes ”please do it for me, I know I’d do it for you, babe” and he was taken aback by that, as if he didn’t know I’d move heaven and earth for him no matter what. He replied ”would you though?” and I replied back ”I have done it once, I’ll do it again,” which was true. I was so close to taking away my life last summer, but the thought of having a few special people in my life, including him, changed that. And after that, I was ready to call him for the first time, no not ready, I ‘needed’ to call him, scream at the top of my lungs how much I love him and I’d never let anyone hurt him, himself included, but he replied ”ok only for you. I’m going back home now.”

I was so scared of coming this close to losing him. I didn’t know what was happening around me anymore. His other friends and I were so terrified and shaken up. After I told them he’s going back home, his friend said his mom wanted to talk to me on Facebook. She and the rest of the family live 2 hrs away from him, and they’re not in contact much aside from FB messages. So she was if not more, as shocked as we were. My heart dropped; I thought she was furious at me, thinking this had something to do with me. I could barely hear my thoughts now; I had to talk to a stranger about how his son almost…you know.

I locked my bedroom door as I couldn’t confront anyone at the moment. I didn’t care if he got back with his cheating ex; I didn’t care if I would wake up my mom at 2 am anymore. In fact, nothing mattered to me, except that he’s safe in his house. It took me forever to make an account. I was still shaking, not knowing how he’s doing now; his friends were comforting me, telling me what I have to tell her about. I occasionally checked in on him; he was watching something on his laptop, so I knew he was no longer in danger, at least for now.

I finally pressed the dial button, and she picked up. I could barely form a sentence because of the shock I was in, but his mom was the sweetest person ever. I didn’t expect her to be that sweet to me. We talked for 2 hrs, and we kinda talked about everything. It was scary how his friend of 20 yrs didn’t know about his condition (the one I contacted at first), but he told me about what he was gonna do, and what he had done in the past later on. And I’m grateful he did. I was so scared nobody else knew about it.

I was scared he was gonna be mad at me for telling his two close friends and family about what he was gonna do that night, and I told his mom he was probably mad at me, but it’s fine as long as he’s safe. She said he has nothing to be mad about. She said I’m a brave girl and I did the right thing and that I should be proud of myself (which made me tear up a bit). We talked about almost everything. I told her about my anxiety and depression and well…unfortunately, he told his mom previously about me and where I told him I’m supposedly from so…yeah, I’m just an asshole.

I know what I did was so wrong. I mean him and I talk almost on a daily basis to this day. But I’m still not sure if I will ever have the guts to tell him. I asked him once randomly what he would do if he found out I was a boy; he said he wouldn’t care. I don’t know what that means. I still haven’t told him about my lie…to be honest, I don’t know if I can do it. It’ll probably hurt him a lot and would think I lied about everything else too, which I didn’t. But it’s not impossible to suspect that someone has lied to you about everything. I love him to death. Maybe one day if we actually plan to meet in real life…I’ll tell him, one day when I’ve finally moved to where I wanna be. As stupid as it sounds, that’s what I’ve gathered. Like if I move to the place I told him I’ll be moving to in a few years, then it’d be easier to tell him maybe? Maybe we’ll never meet in real life at all. I finally voice chatted with him a few days ago for like four hours lol. It was fun, and he said he likes my accent, which was sweet of him, since he’s British himself and has a lovely voice. We had voice chatted before, kinda. I couldn’t mostly talk because my parents were around or they were sleeping, or just pure anxiety, since I don’t really talk to people in real life either.

I’ve been trying to move on from that relationship and work on myself now. We’re still friends, but I’ve been trying to work on myself and reconnect with the real world. Sometimes it’s scary what the future holds for you. I don’t know if he’ll ever find out about this. I don’t know when or how to tell him, or even if I have to do it. But anyway, I will still love him and never forget about all the good memories we’ve shared so far.