I started caring too much about a girl online and she disappeared from the internet to get away from me after telling me scary shit to leave me scared she could be dead. I can’t stop caring once I care too much. Luckily, she came back and let me know she was safe.

Then it happened again with someone else, who went a step further by deleting the accounts she talked to me on, and not coming back. She barely gave me any reason to worry about her being dead - she deleted her accounts while sick with COVID, as a seemingly healthy young woman - but this sort of thing being a repeat occurrence made it terrifying.

That same thing happened again with Digit, whose mutual friends in the chat room we met in now refuse to give me clear answers on whether she is safe, with some telling me she killed herself, and others telling me she faked her death. None of these claims are backed up with any proof.

Digit once told me she couldn’t finish her doctorate because someone she loved died while she was in postgrad. She must go through life wishing she could have a few more minutes with him. Before she deleted her accounts, she had previously disappeared for a while without deleting her accounts, when she had just gone through surgery for cancer; all I’ve done for a couple years is panic and wish for a few more minutes with her, but there was a time when she came back after that first disappearance, before deleting her accounts, and I got a few minutes with her, after months of panic. She made me wish for a few more minutes with her more than anything, and then she gave me those few more minutes, which she never got to have. She made me feel what it meant to have those few minutes while they were happening, not only after. She broke me out of the prison of humans only getting to know what we have after it’s gone.

Humans aren’t meant to experience what I’ve experienced. The human brain can’t handle the mixture of wonder at seeing a loved one while they’re alive and the simultaneous terror of expecting mortality to rip us apart. I’ll never recover, but the cost is worth it. In exchange, she got to show someone this feeling, and I got to be the one that was there for her to share it with. Maybe she picked me because, when we met, I was already in constant panic about the last one from before her. My only regret is not being able to give her the few more minutes she wishes she could have with the person she lost.

If she’s gone, I’ll never forgive the world for hurting her. I’m not sure if I can end the world either - this planet might still contain people worth protecting. Not many, though. For now, I rely on telling myself the rumors of her suicide aren’t true. A mutual contact of ours keeps telling me she’s safe; he would know better than me.

Still, no proof. My mental health keeps deteriorating. I slip back and forth between trying to make the world a better place or a worse place - the two possible directions for me to go in depending on whether she’s safe. I need certainty. The human mind can only go so far in two different directions at the same time. Nonetheless, I must reiterate that love is worth the cost.

The heart at the top of this page is from /r/place 52 years after the UNIX epoch. I made it for Digit near the shuba duck when she was first starting to hate me. I had to try a few different locations; I was constantly begging for help from strangers online; the first few times I got hearts made, they disappeared when I fell asleep, and it took almost 2 days to even initially make the one that ended up sticking around, which was terrifying because they could have announced /r/place was over any minute. I thought there was no way I’d be allowed to finish the heart because people hate me. I didn’t sleep much that week. I got lucky with Digit loving shuba duck, leading me to that location, where shuba duck was coincidentally a vtuber related thing, and the green heart was considered a coincidentally fitting addition for some other vtuber, allowing me to get help from the community.

When she found out about the heart, she loved it. I still tell myself it meant something to her and it feels like that’s probably true. It didn’t change how shitty of a person I am, but it was a showcase of there being at least one person out there trying hard to make sure she’d be remembered forever. I don’t know if I ever made her smile or anything again after that. As it stands, that heart should go on my gravestone as the first and last meaningful, worthwhile accomplishment in my life.

She was always my target audience on wallstreetbets. I always wished there was someone like her on there, and wondered if maybe she was actually there, secretly, and I just wasn’t making good enough posts to hear from her. Once I found out she existed, I stopped caring what anyone else on reddit thought of my posts, or how many upvotes I got, except for the sake of impressing her. She called me a “good writer” once. She was probably high.

If this reaches its target audience: I wish I could write something that lets you understand how much I love you and how wonderful it is to have had any time with you at all, because what I’ve written here isn’t even close.

Knowing this might not reach its target audience: here’s something you can be the target audience for. Digit made this song. When she showed it to me, she said she was bad at making music. I’m sharing it for anyone who might enjoy hearing it, and anyone might have found it painful just now to read about her insulting herself. https://audio.nostr.build/808960a3289a3196a8b371c2239d6925357b9a41183925f9882ee2897df313d3.mp3

More about Digit in this wiki entry for her: