![]() Alyssa looked happy too, and as I fell asleep at dawn, I knew that even if nothing came of this, I at least wanted to give it a shot.Īfter spending the summer together, living so many miles apart became much more difficult. My whole being felt at ease, and I was warm and happy in conversation with her. I felt safe with Alyssa in a way that I never had with anyone else. For the first time, I felt completely unashamed of my sexuality. We talked for four hours that night - until the sun was rising on my side of the world. Then, Alyssa shyly tucked a strand of shoulder-length blonde hair behind her ear while the corner of her mouth turned upward. When our eyes met, we both quickly looked away. She offered a nervous “hi” in the American accent I’d longed to hear. Days after our initial exchange, I accidentally hit the video call button on Snapchat (I swear it was a mistake!) to my surprise, she accepted the call and I was suddenly face-to-face with her in real time. Instead, I mused about how pretty Alyssa’s name sounded and welcomed days spent in almost constant dialogue with her.Īs I gleaned from her Tumblr posts, Alyssa was intelligent, cultured, and kind. Incredibly deflated, I tried to shatter the hesitant daydreams I crafted over the weeks I had spent endlessly scrolling her blog. I lived on the south coast of the United Kingdom, a whole 4678 miles away. She told me her name was Alyssa, that she was 21 years old and lived in Texas. But I tried to keep calm, and plucked up the courage to send her a reply. What I do remember is blushing in front of my computer screen, my heart racing, and feeling a familiar sense of embarrassment over the extent to which I liked this mysterious person. ![]() Whatever short sentence she wrote me is now a blur. My newfound cynicism inspired me to write dark, self-reflective fiction, and I started posting my work to a Tumblr blog I curated during my waking hours - 9 a.m. So I surrendered to my insecurities and decided that being in love was simply not something I was born to experience. I wasn’t feeling a strong physical attraction to anyone, for starters, and I was admittedly still struggling to accept myself. But trying to find love online, especially while grappling with the full-time job of hiding my sexuality from the outside world, seemed to be futile. I had begrudgingly accepted that I was, in fact, a lesbian, and spoken to a few girls on dating apps to find a sense of comfort in my sexuality. In the spring of 2016, still chronically sad, I became an insomniac. I dodged questions like that for far too long. Being “too busy” for a boyfriend was my go-to reply when friends asked me why I wasn’t dating anyone. For almost 10 years, I oscillated wildly between confusion and fear in regards to my sexuality, wrapping myself in lies as I went along.
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