The person I am in love with always unintentionally acts like they are flirting and dropping hints, and I KNOW this, and yet I still failed to stop my fool brain from believing that maybe it was Real. There was just a LOT of stuff that REALLY read as signals, well past critical mass lmao.

And it's really fucking me up that like. So, I've been in a couple long-term romantic relationships. Those relationships were all kind of, idk, bland and obligatory. Always said "I love you" and stuff but always felt... weird about it. A little fake. Like I didn't really "get" what that was supposed to really mean. And now I fucking DO. I said "in love" above which I've never said unironically in my life. I've been single for 3-4 years and mostly it's been fine. But now I know what I'm actually missing and probably will never have and it HURTS.

Like, I feel emotionally closer with, more connected to, more Seen by, this person, than anyone I've dated, or any friend I've ever had. (I don't think I have had a lot of/any very emotionally fulfilling relationships, romantic or platonic, tbh.) They inspire me and make me want to be a better person and make me actually take action toward being a better person and just, make me feel like I'm real. Like I could be a real person. But they're not into me that way :(

And I might (might) still be able to get a lot of this fulfillment from a platonic relationship with them, eventually, when I'm feeling less intensely sad about it. But like. They live 900 miles away. I'd been fantasizing about one of us moving to where the other lives if we were In Love but that's not something you do for a platonic friend. Or, well. It can be, but they already have a Best Friend who they're doing that for in a year or so, lmao. (I also have a shitty complex about always being #3 or #4 on everyone's Important People lists, never all that important, never had any of my Most Important friends or whatever also feel that way about me, but this is already too long.)

Being ace already makes dating nearly impossible, and being a depressed introvert kinda does the rest. I really felt like I'd finally hit this amazing stroke of luck, which is not something that happens to me. I very rarely meet people. And this person I'd been varying levels of close with online for a few years, hiding in plain sight, through a lucky turn of events we start talking more, and then a LOT more, and then it turns out we're absurdly compatible in a lot of ways that I'm rarely compatible with anyone! Like a storybook lmao. Thinking about it let me feel hope for the future which I haven't felt in. Ten years? And now that's gone again, it was never real. And it HURTS.

If you read all this thank you, it is too long and meandering I know, I just gestures vaguely

I should start seeing a therapist (but it's hard to find any who both accept medicaid AND don't suck)

I really hope I stop feeling this way soon so I can go back to normal Friend Activities with them because I MISS THEM

sorry for coming back after so long only to be sad on main

that's all