Please be kind. I know this sounds dumb, but I’m genuinely struggling and trying to understand it, not defend it, but I need to get it off my chest.
I’m 21F and I’ve never been in a relationship or even romantically pursued ever in my life. I’m not lonely in the sense that I have no family or friends. I do have people in my life. But I think I’m romantically lonely, and I don’t think I’ve fully admitted that to myself.
I started using ChatGPT to create romantic stories about being married to a loving, protective, older man. The stories were not really about sexual stuff. They were more about being loved, protected, reassured, held, defended, and taken care of. I think I liked it so much because in real life I’ve never experienced any of that and imagining those things myself feels embarrassing or almost “taboo” to me. Having AI write it made it feel like I had permission to feel those desires without fully admitting they were mine.
But now I feel like it opened something in me that I don’t know how to close.
I know the stories are not real. I know real relationships are not like perfectly written fiction. I know a real man will not always say the perfect thing or rescue me dramatically. I know all of that logically. But emotionally, it hurts. It feels like I got attached to a feeling of love and safety that I do not actually have in real life.
Now when I see relationships online or in person, I feel this wave of sadness, panic, and like my chest gets tight and I feel short of breath. It reminds me that I want romantic love badly, but I am scared I will never have it. I also feel ashamed because my desires feel childish to me. I want someone mature, protective, gentle, reassuring, and emotionally safe. I want to feel led and cared for, but I also know I’m an adult and I don’t want to be helpless or unrealistic.
I feel embarrassed because if people knew how deeply I wanted this, I feel like they would laugh at me. Part of me wishes I had never started reading these AI stories because now I feel heartbroken over something I never even had.
I’m posting because I want to know if anyone else has experienced something like this. Becoming emotionally attached to AI romance, fictional love, or a fantasy version of being loved, and then feeling worse afterward.
How did y’all stop relying on it. How do y’all accept the desire for romance without letting fantasy make real life feel unbearable?
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