XX. The Guy Whom I Fell For Online

“In the end, I’m gonna be alright, but it might take a hundred sleepless nights to make the memories of you disappear”

– LANY –

I think it’s especially common for people in the LGBT community to experience the pain of unrequited love, ranging from developing a hopeless crush with your straight roommate to falling head over heels for your best friend over an intense cuddling session. It’s harder for us to let go of that special someone who gives us butterflies (or to quote Hailee Steinfeld, the whole damn zoo) in our stomach simply because of the extra complications in our dating process. Statistically speaking, our dating pool is much smaller than our straight counterparts, making it more difficult for us to build a connection with someone else. Then add all these bullshit society norms to the equation, and you’ll get this group of distressed human beings with addictive personalities who are constantly craving for affection and validation.

You can imagine how ecstatic I was when I found this next guy on Grindr. He presented himself as this tall, slightly nerdy, 24 years old Caucasian guy who had a great sense of style. He was serving me Evan Spiegel realness. I know you might be thinking, “he’s too good to be true! there’s no way a guy like him would be attracted to a nerdy twink like yourself!” Well, that’s what I thought too, so going into this “relationship”, I didn’t really have too many expectations. I genuinely thought he was going to be another random guy who I would be hopelessly willing to degrade myself for at half past midnight.

Here’s the beauty of Grindr: because there’s no verification process to ensure that you’re not using a fake profile, you can be anyone you want as long as you’re being smart about it. As a side note, when you’re trying to catfish someone on any dating app, don’t ever use a famous celebrity’s picture because let’s be honest, us gays are thirsty but we ain’t dumb (alright, we can be dumb on other aspects in life sometimes. Blame it on our penises!).

As I was preparing for my spring break trip to the Carribean, I could not stop thinking about this guy. Or texting this guy. Or helplessly falling for this guy. It’s like the Man above invented this guy hand-tailored to my liking; his charmingly nerdy look, his effortless way to write sweet nothings, his lean figure, his sarcastic sense of humor, and most importantly, his never-ending thirst for my body. He’s either a guy sent from above to fit the missing puzzle piece in my life or a fictional character created by someone who knew me too well and made my sheer humiliation as their ultimate mission in life. But at that point, I could give two shits about logic, common sense, or whatever anyone warned me about the danger of online dating. I wanted this guy in my life although I had never seen him in person before. 

We were texting non-stop during my whole trip and we promised to meet when I came back to Los Angeles. He told me he’s only in LA for a week to visit his family before he headed back to Davis, which meant we only had exactly 36 hours to be 5 miles away from each other. Very unfortunate, I knew. However, I was so enthusiastic about the prospect of meeting the man of my dream and I planned to seize my window of opportunity, no matter how small it was. We were so into each other (or at least that’s what I thought) we ended up sexting hardcore, sending each other pictures and videos that could easily entice horny gays to pay for our “homemade contents”. We told each other stories that most people do not tell random strangers they just meet within the first three days of meeting each other. Even the majestic beauty of Vieques couldn’t distract me from the thought of soundly sleeping in his arms. You could say I was falling hard for this guy.

So you could imagine my excitement when I stepped my feet in LAX as I was about to meet the man I had shared some of my darkest secrets with. To no one’s surprise other than mine, my hopes and dreams were quickly shattered as he continuously presented me these bullshit excuses in an attempt to avoid meeting me until he flew back to Davis. I was an emotional wreck. I tried searching for his traces online but I couldn’t find anything that contained his information. He still texted me for a little bit after he’s back in Davis (or who knows if that’s actually where he lived) but at that point, I knew it was over. You might be thinking, “how could you be so oblivious to the fact that he’s fake? You’re so naive!” You are probably right; I have nothing to justify my questionable decisions other than my insatiable thirst for attention.

Maybe I was only falling for the idea of him; a relatively attractive guy who has his shit together and shows interest in both my physique and brain. I mean, who wouldn’t fall for that? I guess I was desperate for affection and I ended up projecting the idea of my ideal man onto this online character. For all I know, he could have been an obese woman in her 40’s who strangely found catfishing idiot twinks to be her favorite past time. Or maybe he’s real but he didn’t have the balls to meet me in real life and chickened out at the last minutes. Or maybe he was genuinely busy and our stars didn’t align. I guess the worst part about this whole mess is the thought of the slightest chance of him being real. I think by now you can tell that I have a bad habit of assuming the best in people who end up taking advantage of me. For now, I could only wish that the videos of me pleasuring myself won’t surface online. And if he did decide to profit from my X-rated contents, I really hope he wouldn’t upload those videos to PornHub with tacky titles like “Desperate Asian twink loudly moans while fingering his butthole”.