Dear Alisha:

You had an ex boyfriend whom you never met in person: you never met him in real life, “It was all online”, you wrote. You have a current boyfriend whom you never met in person: you never met him in real life. It is all online. And you have no plans to meet him in real life: (“We haven’t exactly made plans”).

It is all online-, all a matter of typing into a screen, just as I am doing now, and sometimes video calling. There has never been a holding of hands, walking together, sitting at a table together, sharing a meal, shopping for food together, etc. etc. This boyfriend has no practical value in your life: you would be living where you live, eating what you eat, living your life the same way whether this virtual boyfriend is in your life or not.

And yet, you call him “My boyfriend“. You refer to the online communication with him as “our relationship“, you say that you and him “have been together for 10 months”, “we have gone through a lot and have many memories”- you’ve been together virtually, and you’ve gone through a lot virtually, just as a person playing a computer game goes through a lot together with the characters in the game.

You wrote: “I want to spend my life with this guy and only this guy.. I want this guy forever and just the thought of him with someone else kills me inside.. I see my entire future with him clearly and no one else”- he has never been with you except virtually, there are no concrete plans to ever see him in real life.

“I don’t want to lose him”- you never had him in real life.

And you obsess about this guy: “Do I really love him”? My answer is that you love him virtually/ online- not in real life. But we communicated before at length, on another thread long ago. I don’t have access to that thread, but clearly, none of my answers to you satisfied your obsession: do I love him?

First thing for you to understand is that whether you love him or not makes no practical difference to your life. Imagine the following scenario: a married woman with children, living in a house she and her husband own, starts doubting that she loves her husband. There are practical consequences to the answer: if she does not love him, maybe she will have to get a divorce, sell the house, share custody of the children, all that cost a lot of money. Practically, her life if divorced will be very different from her  life if she stays married.

But in your case, you and your virtual boyfriend are not tied legally, you don’t own property together, you don’t have children= no practical consequences to whether you love him or not.

Were you diagnosed with OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder)?

anita