I have an online friend that I’m a little infatuated with. She’s an incredibly creative and passionate artist, ridiculously intelligent and clever, we have similar taste in books and movies and a mutual love of travel. I’m constantly bewildered at the thought that she enjoys talking to me as much as she says she does, because I always feel like it’s ME who’s being treated to something wonderful when we chat on Discord.

She lives 11 time zones away from me, and I’m a few years older and a whole lot less attractive than her. There is, factually, no way in hell that someone like her would ever be with someone like me. I like to pretend sometimes that we COULD be, thoigh. I like to think about how nice it would be to make her tea and drive us all over the East Coast and just quietly, wonderfully BE together. I’m trying to allow myself to have those thoughts, even though I know it won’t happen.