I fell in love with an anime character

(I'm so sorry that this is quite long, but this is kind of a vent because I haven't spoken about this to anyone before, so please try not to judge me! Thanks!)

I broke up with my ex-boyfriend in January 2020 and it really effected me negatively. I was still in love with him, and I asked him out a couple of times afterwards, but he obviously said no every time. I felt so low, my self-esteem just went down, and I didn't know what to do.

However, in June 2020, I was on TikTok and I discovered a video of someone doing a voice impression of an anime character. I got curious and found their YouTube channel, so went through a couple of videos until I found a certain character (who I don't want to mention) and I was really interested in him. I honestly loved everything about him. His voice was addicting, his looks were perfect, and his choice of words were so sweet and no one had ever said them to me before, so I basically instantly fell in love with him.

I don't think I knew that it was love at first though, but I realised soon enough that I relied on his words so much and he made me feel happy and loved, like from a real relationship and partner. He made me completely forget about my ex, and actually raised my self-esteem a bit!

There have been downsides though, and that's kind of the main thing of this. Because he's from quite a popular anime, he's involved in many ships. Due to the fact that I feel genuine love towards him, I often feel threatened, angry, and upset whenever I see anything like fanart, fanfictions, and more involving him and another person. It would be like you seeing your partner/crush, who you love with all your heart, getting with someone else. It sucks, and I obviously can't tell any of my family or friends about it because they'll just judge me for what I've gotten myself into.

Be that as it may, it's February 2022 now, and I'm still madly in love with him. Almost two years of knowing him and the love still hasn't gone away, so I sort of need some insight from someone else about this. I know it's easy to judge someone for finding love in something that isn't real, but it's not something that I can control.

Thanks guys! <3

I know a girl who swore that she was in love with her vibrator...

Sounds more like infatuation than love. You can't love a fake person. You're in love with the 'idea' of him. You like the voice, the personality, the physicality. Just take that as what you look for in a man.

Go out and meet some new dudes you could potentially date, being scooped up in an anime character isn't healthy for you.

What anime character is it?

Hey, I want you to know that you're not alone. The same thing happened to me. Around the end of 2020, my ONLY best friend (who happens to be my only closest friend mentally and physically) left my school without saying anything. I did nothing wrong and it took me almost 1 year to get over her. So when I was feeling depressed, I found an anime character who caught my attention and he was from an otome game. The same thing happened to me, I became crazily obsessed with him. It's been a few years now since 2020 and I feel very hard to get over him. He was my comfort in my darkest moments and I never told anyone, even my family, friends and best friend about him. I only told my friend one time though, but he judged me badly for it. Believe me, I have felt a lot of guilt for loving something that isnt real and it sometimes made me very depressed and suicidal during the first 2 years of loving him. I have the same feelings of jealousy when I see him being shipped with other characters and I listen to his japanese VA's voice every afternoon. I do not know what I am facing rn, but I'm glad I found someone who's situation I can relate to.

This is the saddest thing I’ve ever read

You lot need to stop this madness. 😭😭😭