Online Relationships (may trigger?)

[SoulInDespair]

So here's the deal. I'm an incredibly lonely person. Besides my depression and isolationing I'm so desperate for someone to care about me that I fell in love with a male friend on this other forum on the internet. Of course, he didn't know at first that I loved him. In the beginning we were just good friends that had alot in common with each other, so much so it was sometimes eerie to the both of us. We enjoyed talking and joking around and flirting. He was an awful great flirt and so was I. I was a regular femme fatale with him. He was so sweet and kind to me and if he hadn't seen me on the forum when he thought I'd be there he was PMing me as where I was hiding and is everything okay with me. He really seemed to care.

We both had another thing in common too. Both of us were very sad and lonely people who were looking for someone to love us. He had lost his fiance' in a car accident and had been thru so many bad things in his life like childhood abuse.....like myself....and went thru hell overseas in the service that I found my heart being tugged at with each and every story he told me. That's when I knew I was in love with him. How could I not love someone who I saw so much of myself in? Someone who seemed to understand me? Someone who had been thru so much in his life? I wanted to rescue him from his pain and loss of his fiance'. I wanted to bring joy to his life again and in turn bring joy into mine simply by being with him. Sometimes, with the things we share with each other and the sweet way he would talk to me I truly thought he felt the same way with me as I did with him.

I never told him how I felt about him but he was smart enough to figure it out from my conversations with him. At first, I was very angry with him because I felt lend on. He apologized for hurting me but said there could never be anything between us and that it was because of his fears. I'm not sure what he meant by that. I knew he had very low self-esteem and put himself down alot. Saying he was ugly because he was obese. A weight gain due to over-eating to cover the pain of loosing his deceased fiance'. I saw pictures of him and I didn't care about his appearance. All I cared about was the sweet man that had been my online friend. I tried to change his mind about us but to no success. He said he didn't want to loose my friendship and I took what he said at face value and told him he wouldn't. I did warn him that I needed to be gone for awhile to work thru some things concerning my feelings for him. I was gone 7 days.

Let's just say I failed in the acceptance and letting go department. Partly, because I thought he was testing me. He had told me a few times that he chased girls away because of the way he was....a bad ass bastard and because he was ugly. Plus, several months before we met online he had fallen in love with a girl who I got the impression lend him on. Other girls on the forum also lend him to believe they cared about him and played with his feelings. So I was gently persistent and told him I still cared about him. I wanted to prove to him I wasn't like these other girls. I intended to stand by him.

Anyway, that's when his personality changed. He got mean, snotty, cold and distant. He use to PM me twenty times a day but that stopped too. Also, he would post stuff on the forum designed to attack and humilate me but yet he would turn around the next minute and act all nicey, nice to me like he was afriad I'd leave him. Or maybe it was to prove he was my friend still. I don't know. His action were very confusing. Alot of mixed messages with him. He was also paranoid and would read into things I said and accuse me of it. I'd tell him he was wrong and try to explain what it was I said but I always got the impression he didn't believe me. I certainly never got an apology.

He really hurt me and I was terribly depressed. In fact, I still am depressed and still in love with him after two years of not hearing from him. He left the forum one day for a couple of months, came back a couple of times and then left completely. But in his signature portion of his final posts that day. He had created a picture....a man and a woman looking lovingly at each other.....with words about how love is what dreams are made of and that this is the most wonderful thing in the world.

That picture and those words still haunt me to this day. I can't help but feel it was ment for me. That he was trying to tell me he felt the same way towards me as I did for him. He would often express his feelings for me with a picture. But I was so angry and hurt over the humilation he caused me on the forum and the fact that I felt betrayed by his telling all his friends about me and my feelings for him. That I put him on PM block so I couldn't get a message from him. Ten minutes after I appeared on the forum and posted to another friend there, he left and never came back. Nor has he remained in contact with any of his other close friends from that forum. I know he had posted that he had terminal cancer but I don't know if that's true or if it was an attempt to get attention. Many on that board wasn't sure which it was.

So right now, no one knows if he's alive or dead so I'm sitting out here depressed and grieving for him because 1) I may have missed my chance with him by putting him on PM block and 2) he could actually be dead and I'll never know one way or the other and I'm feeling guilty about that. Plus, I'm angry at him for not contacting one of his other friends to say he's alive and well. I think it was very selfish of him to leave everyone who cared about him there to worry and wonder about his welfare.

I still do alot of crying when I think of him especally thinking about him being dead. I know this is foolishness and I should move on with my life but I loved him with all my heart and soul. I would have died for him to save his life. If I knew where he spent time in the hospital with his cancer. I would have flown there to sit beside him and hold his hand and let him know he wasn't alone in the world. That someone cared about him. I tried not thinking about him and that worked well for a long time and I even started to get over him but then this spring I started to think about him again and then I fell in love with him again.

I'm so sick of being alone and I swear I could go easily insane from the loneliness of my life. I don't have any Real Life friends and it's hard and painful for me to make any. So I thought since I was a failure at making RL friends then at least I could make some online ones but I'm beginning to wonder if online friendships are True Friendships. I saw alot of back stabbing and phoney friendships on that forum and a lot of fighting as a result of it.

Somedays, my grief and loneliness is so overwhelming that I pray to God each day to take me home. I'm not talking suicide or anything here but I'm so tired of life and it's struggles that I feel I can endure no more of it. I'm fifty-one, never been married and no kids. I have no family, no friends and no spouse or kids that would miss me. So what's the point of my life? What have I got to show for it? Nothing!! Who will miss me? No one!!

I've been thru 11 therapist and am on four different medications due to my unresolved childhood abuse and depression and nothing helps. I guess I had thought with this guy that maybe we could help each other heal but now my opinion of men and my life has only gotten worse.

Living In Hell.

[hey-its-ok]

Hi SoulInDespair, I have read all of your posts, you sound like you have such a beautiful heart, and you are so warm, compassionate, loving, loyal, trustworthy... i don't see why you would have problems finding someone to love you.... but i have to say that never put someone you love or treasure on PM block...

in one of your other post, you said:

"I isolate myself because I don't feel I'm good enough to be anyones friend or soul mate. That I have nothing to offer them. That I'm a failure and I'm afriad they see that in me."

I really don't think so. You just have to see if you can try to stop isolating yourself, and give it a go to the outside world. I think you have lots to offer, and you are good enought for anyone. I am not saying this just to make you happy, but i am saying this from reading the things you post. I think you just had a bad experience with that guy online, but i think if you give it a go and show off your warm, caring, understanding and loving personality, you are worth something and people will see that in you... really, this is how i truely feel... don't get depressed, i think you have a lot going for you, you have to be more confident in yourself and see your own worth, i can see your worth from just that few post you made...

all the best

[SoulInDespair]

Thank you for your very kind words. They touched me deeply. ((hugs))

I know I probably shouldn't of put him on pm block but I only did that after he had been attacking me online and because he removed me from his friends list. Also, stupid person that I am I listened to my other online friends from that forum who told me to do it so that he didn't start sending me nasty PMs too. Thinking back, the person who was encouraging me most to do that was the person who had issue with him. The two of them use to fight like cats and dogs in the forum and it was very clear those two hated each other.

I discovered much later that he hadn't PM blocked me like I thought he would have after removing me from his friends list when I sent a PM on the anniversary of his deceased fiance' death. I wanted him to know that I was thinking of him and knew he was going thru alot of pain right then and I wished him well. Unfortunately, that PM never got opened and read.

I regret alot concerning him. I miss him alot too. He always acted as the knight in shining armour with me. I don't know if this was all pretend with him but some part of me wants to believe it wasn't so then sometimes I looks for him where I work. He lives down south and I live up north but we always talked about meeting and I told him what city I lived in and where I worked. I know he'll never show and that I'm living a fantasy.

His soul was in dispair like mine and he told me so much about himself and how he was such a bad person. I always told him I didn't think he was a bad person. I think he lashed out alot because he had been hurt alot by people especally women and so I understood that. I do the same thing for the same reasons.

As far as it working out between us romanticly. I have to be honest with myself and say it probably wouldn't have. There was quite the age difference between us and I also lied to him about a few things concerning myself. I wanted to make myself look good so he'd fall in love with me because I didn't think what I had to offer as is was good enough. So I embelished a few facts about myself. Plus, I'm not very attrative myself and I'm fat and I know men are more visual where as women are more into personalities. I doubt he'd of liked what he'd seen. So with all this I would of probably proved to be a great disappointment to him and if we met I would of only been hurt by him again when he rejected me.

As for finding someone else in real life. I don't hold much hope. I'm fifty-one and right now I feel it's to late to find a friend let alone someone who will love me and stick by me for the rest of my life.

Sorry if this comes across as me throwing a pity party but it's hard sometimes to keep up positive thoughts when your life has been so negative.

[hey-its-ok]

You know, the attractiveness of a person depends to a large extend on their personality... a bit of makeup, positive attitude, self confidence , and a smile also goes a long way 51 is not too late, its never too late to make friends, and at your age, finding a partner is not too late too... you really need to realise your own worth... i know its easier said than done... but don't give up... keep trying, but make some changes, like, as i said above, realise your own worth, and be confident about yourself... i can see a lot more in you than you seem to be able to see in yourself...

[SoulInDespair]

I understand that finding my own self-worth comes from the inside and not from things external. I've depend to often on outside things to tell me that "I'm Okay", "I am lovable" and "that I deserve to be happy".

If your whole self-worth is wrapped up in external things like your job or your friends then you're setting yourself up for failure. Because people lose their jobs all the time and friend move away, die or prove they aren't your friend in the first place.

Another trick I find myself doing and I just started realizing this of late is the choices I make in who I associate with. I don't choose my friends very often. They mostly choose me. But when I do choose a friend I often find that I'm attracted to the wrong type of people for me. I recently noticed that when I was on that one forum I mentioned here. Several of the people I wanted to be friends with and succeed were people who had bad reputations for starting trouble, bashing people, stalking them and generally causing chaos until Administration steps in and threatens to ban them. Then they calm down for awhile.

One such person like this, who I was friends with was the one who told me to put this guy I loved on PM block. Several months later her and I had a falling out because I got super depressed and didn't return to the forum for six weeks. I thought she'd understand since she was a therapist but I guess I was wrong. She felt the only reason I should not of reported into her is if I was dead, in the hospital or curled up in a fetal position in a padded cell in a psychic ward.

I felt very rejected and hurt. The one person who I thought would understand where I was coming from and not abandon me was the one person who did. But I'm not alone. Shes done this kind of thing to people before me and she's done this kind of thing to people since me. She's a very harsh person. Very controlling and if you disagree with her she accuses you of attacking her even when she knows you're in the right.

[hey-its-ok]

Yes, you are right about finding self worth from within... see the quality you have in yourself, and be proud of it

I know what you mean by always choosing the wrong type of friends... I have seen this trait in many people... try to find friends who are kind, compassionate, patient, warm, helpful and gentle...

Don't feel so rejected and hurt... there are lots of good people out there, she obviously wasn't the right one for you...

One thing with making online friends is that its quite impersonal, you don't know who you are talking to, and what you know may not be accurate as it can be just a show... its easy to hide behind a mask when you are online... people tend to drop and pick up friends easily online too i noticed... don't get too worried about it... take it one step at a time, ok?

[SoulInDespair]

You're right about people wearing masks. I think people do it alot in real life too but they may do it even more online. From my observation from this one forum I spent two years of my life on it was clear that the most you could hope for there were to have "friendly acquaintances". I never saw signs of "true friendships" there.

It has certainly tainted my view of forums and although I have this one favorite fish forum I like to go to now. I don't delude myself into thinking I have friends there. We all get along. We help each other out with problems with our fish and that's good enough for me. I don't expect or need more then that from them.

Live and learn.