What is the saddest detail about your life that no one knows?

I go to incredible, absurd lengths to attract people's romantic attention online. And in a few cases I've turned out to be quite good at it, making people feel genuinely loved for maybe the first time in their lives.

And it's all because the first internet crush I ever met in person decided on the spot that I just wasn't good-looking enough for him/her.

It's an emotional hole that never goes away. I can almost fill it up, but only if I spend hours a day preying on other people's feelings. And never following through by meeting them in person.

The only time I stop doing this is when I go away on trips, and toward the end of the trip my hands start to shake and I get nervous until I can go back online and pursue people's attention again (with some success, which I usually do have).

I'm afraid I'll never stop doing this because nothing else in life feels as good to me. In fact nothing else has much of a feeling at all to me. Except tedium and boredom, until I can get back online and catch people's attention again.

It's sad, but it's not really tragic. Mostly everyone involved is getting a little it of what they need out of the situation. It does keep me from having other personal relationships, but I don't really miss those. Having those relationships would just remind me of not being good-looking enough for my first internet crush.

This way I can almost kind of forget that happened. Because I know that if I had contact with my ex-crush once again, I could tell endless stories about other people I had managed to charm and inspire a certain amount of devotion in. I need that feeling, anew every day, to get through my day.

/r/AskReddit Thread