I Faked a Relationship Online—And It Got Way Too Real

By Zubair Ahmad

It started as a joke.
That’s what I kept telling myself.

Bored during quarantine, I was spending too much time on Instagram—especially on my second account, the anonymous one I made just to scroll through content I didn’t want tied to my “real” identity. No friends, no family, just strangers and aesthetic pages. Mood boards. Travel reels. Photographers. Poets.

That’s where I first saw Reid.

His page had that cinematic vibe. Black and white portraits, old bookstores, cigarette smoke curling near a sunlit window, vague captions like "somewhere between dreams and memory." He looked like someone who didn’t even know how beautiful he was. Mysterious. Untouchable.

We never spoke. He didn’t even follow me. But for some reason, I tagged him in a random post—just for laughs.

It was a photo of my coffee mug sitting on a windowsill. I added the caption:
"He makes it exactly how I like it. ☕❤️ #ReidThings"

No one questioned it. In fact, the comments started immediately.

“You guys are so cute!”
“OMG finally, I was waiting for this!”
“He’s a keeper 😍”

And that was the moment the joke stopped being funny... and started becoming addictive.


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The Fantasy Was Too Easy to Build

I played along.

I began sharing blurry glimpses of “his” arm in the background of my photos. A side-profile selfie with a hoodie I claimed was his. I recorded a short video of “his laugh” in the background—just a voice filter over mine, muffled by distance. The more I posted, the more real it felt. Even to me.

People loved “us.” My DMs filled with hearts and compliments. Someone even wrote,

> “You look like you’re glowing lately.”



I was glowing. With attention. With validation. With the illusion that I had finally become the person everyone wanted to root for. And the best part? I didn’t risk anything real. No heartbreak. No mess.

It was all pretend. Safe and clean.

Until it wasn’t.


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Reid Found Out

One evening, I checked my DMs and felt my stomach flip.

Reid:
“Hey. Someone sent me your post. I don’t know you. Why are you pretending we’re dating?”

My throat dried up. I stared at the message for ten minutes. My fingers hovered over my phone like they were made of lead.

I could have blocked him. I could’ve lied. But something in me finally cracked.

I wrote back:

> “It started as a joke. I was lonely. I didn’t mean to disrespect you. I’m sorry.”



He read it—and didn’t reply.

But the next day, my phone exploded.


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The Fallout Was Brutal

Reid had posted a story to his 30k followers.
A screenshot of my fake couple posts, with a caption:

> “This person is faking a relationship with me. Please report.”



Within hours, the same people who’d hyped me up were now calling me a weirdo.
“Creepy”
“Desperate”
“Catfish”

My following dropped overnight. I lost two friends who told me they felt “manipulated.” Someone even messaged my freelance client warning them I was “unstable.” I panicked, deleted everything, and locked my accounts. But the screenshots were already out there.

You can't delete the internet.


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What I Learned in the Silence

I spent the next few weeks offline, sitting with the shame. I kept replaying the same question:
Why did I do it?

The truth was painful:
I didn’t want to feel invisible anymore.

We live in a world where being loved is a badge of honor, where every “taken” status is a small trophy of worth. I didn’t want to feel like the last one left behind. So I built a fantasy. I told a beautiful lie. And people believed it—because they wanted it to be true, just like I did.

But in chasing attention, I lost authenticity.
And in trying to be seen, I ended up being exposed.


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The Realest Post I’ve Ever Made

I haven’t posted anything since.

But maybe this—these words right now—are my first step back into being real. Not the polished version. Not the fantasy. Just a person who made a mistake and is trying to understand why.

If you’ve ever felt lonely enough to lie for love or likes... I get it.
You’re not the only one.

Just don’t forget: the truth, even when it's messy, is worth more than a perfect illusion.

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