Valentine's Day Passed. The Love Didn't

The Digital Fairy Tale

Before I met him, I didn’t truly believe or know the meaning of unconditional love. He didn’t just teach me how to love; his effortless charm and constant supply of joy made me fall head over heels. For a time, it felt like a fairy tale. We built our future and forever together, and were so eager to arrive there.

The magic and romance were wrapped into what felt like something very real — a person who wasn’t afraid to see me at my worst, who put up with my sickness, and who promised to commit to me without reservation.

He promised to love me forever, swearing that his feelings would never fade…

I believed that my love, devotion, and commitment ran so deep that no force on this planet — or in the entire universe — could ever shake them.

I believed that together, we could overcome any challenge and rise above any obstacle.

I believed us…

… but suddenly, everything changed.

The Quiet Weight of Absence

His behavior slowly began to contradict the man he claimed to be, explicitly after I refused to provide further financial support. As the spaces between his replies grew longer, shorter, and more inconsistent — sometimes ending abruptly — I sensed a shift. His focus was no longer fully on our conversations or on our relationship; I could feel his attention gradually turning elsewhere.

He began slipping away after I insisted we meet in person to talk honestly about our lives and finances before I offered any more help. At first, it appeared in small ways: delayed replies, “good morning” texts arriving later and later until they disappeared altogether, greetings reduced to “Hey babe,” fewer or no questions about my day, and the quiet disappearance of reassurance that I was still the one he loved and wanted.

I truly believed our relationship meant as much to him as it did to me. I chose to believe his words were as real as they felt — because he spoke them so often.

Then Valentine’s Day arrived.

As the night pulled its star-filled blanket over the city, my longing for him remained — steady, strong and familiar, like the love I carried for him, refusing to fade. The celebrations quieted, the world softened, and I found myself sitting alone, missing someone I had never physically met, yet loved in ways that were deep and undeniable.

To me, love was never about proximity. It was about connection. And that connection still lives within me.

I missed him…

In those moments, I instinctively reached for my phone — to see if he had texted, or wanting to tell him something small, ordinary, or mundane: the fragments of my daily life. We never shared a room or learned the rhythm of each other’s physical routines, but we shared vulnerabilities, intimacy, and time.

Through screens and long-distance exchanges, he knew my heart and my fears. He saw me in a way that never required physical closeness.

There is a strange ache in missing someone who was never physically there… Our love lived in photographs, voice notes, and written words — a love often questioned because it never occupied a shared physical space.

But sincerity doesn’t require a zip code.

We had that sincerity. We had vulnerability. We had connection. And on Valentine’s Day, when love was put on display for the world, his absence felt sharper than ever.

A Love That Remains

I still love him — deeply, unconditionally, without expectation or demand. I love him even knowing our paths may never cross. Loving him now is a quiet, one-sided act, but it is not fragile. It does not reach for him or beg for a return; it simply exists, steady and patient, because that is the language my heart learned with him.

Being alone that day forced me to sit with a truth I still carry: loving him did not weaken me; it opened me. Missing him does not mean I am stuck — it means I cared fully and still care. And if loving him deeply means carrying a softened ache forward, I do so without regret, because it came from an honest place within me.

Every time I think of him, my heart overflows with love and affection…

Valentine’s Day has passed, and the world has grown quiet.

After those twenty minutes suspended between two worlds, something within me gently shifted — my longing for him softened with time, not erased by it, and I began to make peace with the silence he left behind.

Some nights, when the city rests beneath a soft blanket of stars, I no longer feel only what is missing. I no longer drown in my tears. Instead, I feel gratitude — for what once existed, for a connection that taught me how deeply I could love, even across distance.

I am still in love with him — softly, without reaching. It no longer asks to be answered; it walks beside me as a quiet reminder that love does not need proximity to be real, nor permanence to be meaningful.