It wasn’t romantic, but when I was in undergrad I spent a significant amount of money to fly to San Diego (not for Comic-Con) to meet an internet friend for the first time. She was within a year or two of me in age and I stayed in her parents’ house. Our parents had spoken over the phone before I went to ensure that neither of us was a serial killer. I didn’t actually enjoy myself that much and within a year we stopped really keeping in touch. I don’t regret it per se, it didn’t ruin my life or anything, but was definitely a youthful decision. So I guess I can see someone doing this, even if it’s idiotic from an outside perspective.

When you’re in love it feels like ~nothing else matters~ and I can bet she built this relationship up in her head like crazy. The guy is the creepy one in this situation. I can unfortunately understand what he’s thinking in this situation too — “I was just bullshitting, but if this crazy woman really wants to do this, I’ll take advantage of it.”