Eldest (my last name)

Sure, I have a few already established that are already solid because the people I have them with actually understand me and consistently put in effort to do so with me doing the same as much as I can. It's trying to find new ones that burns me every time, and hopefully no one expects them from me from now on, because I'm done being burned, gutted, hurt, stabbed in the heart with the proverbial knife, especially with no time to shield myself.

and sometimes they come back when you least expect it, years later, even, and there's this sudden rush of relief like there you are, there you are, even though you barely knew each other.

there's a strange kind of love to it. i don't know you and i want to hold your hand across miles and time zones and oceans. i can still see the imprint of you in this community you left. you don't think anyone will notice or care when you're gone, but we notice and we care and we wish you well.

[Image ID: Feels Guy Cycle Meme

Top of cycle is "Needs routine"

Second cycle reads "Work gives routine"

Third cycle reads "Autistic burnout from working"

Last cycle reads "Takes break to recover"

Is it weird to miss someone who you've only talked to briefly on here who deactivated their account for a reason or another, and since you don't know if there's any other social media out there they have along with the fact that you still didn't talk to them much, you'll probably never encounter them again?

Because that happened to me. I found an account by chance while perusing Tumblr, and I was interested in what posts were on there despite them being 18+ and NSFW. I honestly liked the content when looking through it and I even sent a message through the ask function admitting as such despite being unusually shy for some reason, maybe because at the time I didn't post anything (until my rant about my girl Alyssa Targaryen not too long ago) and I usually prefer to keep to myself.

I admittedly wasn't sure what the response would be and suddenly I felt like the biggest shrinking violet on the planet at the time. It was probably because it was the first time I had ever sent an ask on anyone's account, not to mention this was probably the first guy I reached out to on my own initiative outside of those I was already comfortable around on Discord. I was so nervous and to a certain extent, scared, because even though I was 22 at the time I never knew I could be so shy. I must have been pretty red in the face from my shyness too.

But he reached out to me about my ask through Tumblr's messages function, and he was honestly really kind. In the first message he sent to me, he thanked me for the kindness in my ask, and I was so surprised that he directly reached out to me that not only did my shyness kick in full force, I admittedly didn't respond to it for a month. When I finally responded, he understood I was shy for reasons I couldn't explain at the time, and surprisingly, despite my shyness still lingering, I felt comfortable around him. He assured me that he didn't feel uncomfortable about the fact that I liked a lot of his posts, which I was feeling really conscious about and had admitted to him. I felt like I could come out of my shell at least a bit, open up a little, at least to the point where I was willing to keep talking to him if we could. There were times where there were bumps in the road, where I wasn't sure if we had gotten off on the wrong foot or something or I was wondering if I was annoying or a load because of a tendency to just run my mouth at times, but overall I honestly enjoyed talking to him and his company even if it was solely through Tumblr's messages function.

However, it wasn't for long. We only talked for a few months, and even then, it was really brief and spread out partially due to different time zones. He was dealing with a lot of hate from anons who knew they could get away with it because they could hide behind screens. It was one of the key reasons if not the key reason why he eventually deactivated his blog, last year actually, and probably hasn't returned. Our final exchange, in October last year, was me wishing him luck since he was deleting his blog and possibly not returning, and he thanked me and wished me the best as well. And we both moved on with our lives.

But here's why I think I'm weird when concerning this topic and for even writing all this. It's because somehow, I miss him and feel a wish to reconnect with him and talk with him again. Aside from us talking very sparsely, I'm not sure if we even really knew each other after our message exchanging. As a result of all that, I feel like I shouldn't miss him. Yet I do, and I feel a strange desire to reconnect with him and talk with him again. I try to quash those feelings because not only will it probably never happen, to an extent I feel like it doesn't feel right to miss him and want to reconnect with him after only exchanging messages with him briefly and it being almost a year since he left.

EDIT 8/6/24: Lack of closure is another feeling I didn't mention I was dealing with so I wanted to add that. It's very much common, and yes, it is definitely painful, especially in this kind of situation. While I personally don't know if I'll ever find the closure I long for, especially since I would have to somehow get back in contact with the person I talked about to even get close to finding it properly (as much as there's a part of me that wants that to happen for the sake of closure, there is that real fear that it would be unwise and attention-seeking, and I have no hope of it happening), I do hope that anyone else who is dealing with similar feelings or once did could find their own proper closure.