I [21 F] am conflicted about ghosting an Internet stranger [???] I've greeted every day for the past ~8 years

tl;dr: I've been texting good morning and goodnight to someone I met on the Internet every single day for the past eight years. I barely know this person otherwise. I think I want to stop greeting them every day, so I've been ghosting them, but I feel a lot of guilt about it.

---

Not your typical post, I think, lol.

When I was a young teenager, I was pretty lonely, so I would talk to people on Omegle on occasion. This was a long time ago, but I think I remember how the conversation went one fateful day: I got matched with a very angry person who started hurling all kinds of insults and expletives and ill wishes on me. Things like, "I hope your mom gets cancer," etc, etc. I told this person I knew they were taking their anger about something else out on me, so none of this bothered me -- I was happy to talk to them about whatever was on their mind. I don't remember the conversation that followed, but I know it became very pleasant and this person and I exchanged usernames for a texting app before disconnecting.

We had a few conversations via this text app in the following weeks and months about our lives -- I was just entering high school, and this person was attending university; I was stuck in a small town in the American midwest, and this person was in Austria. We exchanged our favorite jokes, but English wasn't their first language, so the punchlines were lost in translation. These conversations became less and less frequent, until eventually, we just began exchanging the same four texts every single day:

THEM: "Good morning, I hope you will have a nice day! :)"

ME: "Good morning, you as well! :)"

THEM: "Goodnight and sleep well :)"

ME: "Goodnight, and you too! :)"

And so this continued, every single day, for about eight years or so now. I was super dissociating through life when we first met, so again, it's a little hard to recall. The earliest time I texted them that I can recall with absolute certainty was towards the end of 8th grade. This person is not a bot -- the texts arrive at different times every single day. There was one time during my freshman year of high school where I decided to stop texting them, and after a week or so, they said something like, "Are you okay? I really miss texting you," at which point I felt bad and started up again. After that, if I ever went on vacation or changed time zones or wouldn't have my phone on me for a few days, I would let them know in advance, and then we'd pick back up again. Occasionally, they would apologize for missing a day. On Christmas and New Year we always added wishes for a good holiday in our texts.

The years passed -- I left my small town and moved to a big city far away for college. I met the love of my life and friends who truly understood me, and I cut some very toxic people out of my life, too. But still, I continued to greet this stranger every single day as normal -- up until a few weeks ago.

It was a Friday that I realized I hadn't heard from them in a while. I opened up our chat and saw that my last message had been sent, but not delivered, that Wednesday. I shrugged -- must have been a problem on their end. A couple days later, they ended up texting me back with a greeting. I think I reengaged with them for a few more days, but then I just . . . stopped. There's currently an unread message from them in my notification bar that reads:

"Hello, is everything alright?"

I haven't opened it for a few days now.

Why? Why did I start ghosting them? I think, deep down, I don't want to do this anymore. I'm trying to figure out why, and I think it's a few reasons. First of all, I'm no longer starving for small, pleasant interactions like I was in high school. I was super lonely when we first met -- I went from one two-year abusive relationship to the next two-year abusive relationship, and my family was just making things worse. It felt really great to know there was someone, anyone out there who gave a shit about me during those years. But I don't need that anymore -- not like I used to. Since arriving at college I've met the love of my life. We'll have been dating for two years in a few days now, and after my previous abusive relationships, I can still barely fathom how kind and wonderful he is to me. I'm also living with my two best friends -- friends like I've never had before, who I always get along with and have so much fun with. Socially, I'm in a much better place than I've ever been, and I no longer have to rely on a stranger across the world to put a single smile on my face.

Secondly, it should be noted that my first abusive relationship was long-distance with someone else I met over Omegle and spoke to primarily via this particular texting app (I didn't have any internet supervision and made some bad choices as a kid, lmao). I've done a lot of processing about this since arriving at college and I think it would be really good to wash my hands of the whole affair and delete the texting app off of my phone. Just being in the app for a few seconds twice a day can trigger unpleasant memories.

Thirdly, I'm trying to spend less time on my phone. I've been super addicted to a certain social media app since high school, and addicted to reddit before that. There's been too many days where I've wasted hours of my time scrolling away, and I simply don't have time for that. My phone is a crutch -- a place I can completely check out and get away from whatever bad thoughts or responsibilities I have. Sometimes that's useful, but I've realized that I need to stop relying on it quite so much. I've made some progress -- setting daily fifteen-minute timers to limit my usage of the reddit and other social media app was the best decision I ever made. But even then, it's an issue, and every notification I get tempts me to waste more and more of my day.

Finally, I guess I just feel like I'm . . . growing out of it, in a way separate from these other reasons. I've only shared this story with a select few other people in my life because I know the response from most people on first glance would be "what the fuck that's so weird." I think I'm starting to feel like it's weird, too. I'm about to graduate college and get a real job and become more of a "real adult." I know that there's no one way to be an adult, and that I should always do what makes me happy no matter my age, but in some ways, greeting this stranger every day feels a lot like an artifact from my childhood; something I'm supposed to stop doing now that I'm older.

But how on God's green earth am I supposed to tell them all this?? "Hi, person I've spoken to for eight years now and yet am still not entirely certain of your gender: I want to stop this daily interaction we have that takes < 30 seconds to complete because you remind me of my childhood abuser in a way." What??? What the fuck??? It feels rude, and mean, and like I couldn't possibly put into accurate words why I want to stop talking to this person to them directly. It feels bad because I do genuinely care about this person, and they care about me too. There's an unread text in my notification bar proving that. They're worried about me. The other Friday, when I realized my text wasn't sending, I was worried about them, too. They are, quite literally, the only person who has remained completely constant in my life through my most tumultuous years. They have been unwavering in their kindness and dedication to me. I should mention that they always, always are the person to text first and extremely rarely forget to. If I were the person to text first, this wouldn't have lasted more than a couple months. This person actively wakes up every single day and chooses to send a text to me, even if I forgot to respond the previous day. This is in great contrast to me, who simply responds when prompted by a notification on my phone. When I step back and look at the length of our history, I am in awe of the time and energy and care some random person across the world has for me. And yet, given the reasons why I want to stop talking to them, it feels so much simpler and easier to ghost them rather than to try to explain this complicated mess of emotions I have about this. It feels selfish of me to want to end our eight-year relationship for the reasons I do, and I almost feel like it would hurt them more if they knew the truth rather than me just ghosting them. And I know it's not selfish of me to try to cut out things that remind me of the literal worst time of my life, but . . . god, it's just so complicated, and I have no idea how to explain it concisely. Do they even think this is as big of a deal as I'm making it out to be? Am I just one of a dozen other people they're texting greetings to every day? I have no idea.

Anyhow, this ended up a lot longer than I originally intended it to be, but it feels nice to write it out. I've barely talked to anyone in my life about this before, so any opinions or advice anyone can offer are appreciated. Thanks for reading.

Submitted February 20, 2021 at 12:30PM by goodmorninggail https://ift.tt/37wXsD4