I’m 32 years old and have struggled with social anxiety since childhood. I lost both my dad and mom to cancer in 2008 and 2014, respectively. I don’t have any siblings and haven’t had friends since high school. I feel truly alone in this world and desperately crave social interaction. My routine for the past 12 years has consisted of working a dead-end retail job and spending most of my free time watching porn. Despite my low wage, I was able to save a little over $50k through extreme frugality. I bring my own lunch to work, never eat out or get take-out, and have been wearing the same clothes for over a decade. So the concept of paying for porn seemed ridiculous to me before I got involved with a camgirl.
Anyway, on to my story. I would visit cam sites sporadically in the past, but just lurked and never interacted with the girls. If the girl didn’t take her clothes off within 5 minutes, I’d bail and try to find some videos of her elsewhere. I found a lot of these girls to be very attractive, but lacking in the personality department. They were either too sexual or monotonous for my taste.
Then one night, I came across a cute girl who was new to camming. There wasn’t much tipping going on and I kind of felt bad for her. I decided to get out the credit card and load up on some tokens. I tipped her 50 tokens to perform some act and she blew me a kiss. At that point, I was hooked. Just for reference, a token costs around $0.10 for the buyer and worth $0.05 to the model.
Over the next few months, I became completely obsessed with this girl. I’ve never been a social media person, but created a Twitter and Instagram account for the sole purpose of following her. Later, I bought her premium snapchat, which was considered a “good deal” at the time. We communicated via email and she would always call me sweet, generous, and a good “friend.” In the back of my head I knew this wasn’t genuine, but I was willing to suspend my disbelief (loneliness is a helluva drug). I continued to tip her between 50 and 100 every show. I didn’t want to insult her, so I never went under 50. She had a few regulars, but none of them tipped as much me. One of them even thanked me for taking one for the team. It made me feel “special.”
As she became more popular, she would attract big tippers and I felt like I had to compete for her affection. What was once an enjoyable, albeit ephemeral experience soon became stressful.
There was one user in particular who really got on my nerves. He was a software engineer making $200k/year (or so he claimed) and would always talk about how he’d spoil this girl rotten if they were dating/married. He would out-tip everyone and use weird phrases like “Here comes the money bazooka!” If I tipped 400, he’d immediately 500. If someone else tipped 200, he’d tip 300. He once dropped 5000 tokens in a single show and the girl got super emotional. This made me insanely jealous.
The guy DM’d a few of the regulars and myself on Twitter, asking us our age, what we did for a living, and how much we made. I didn’t tell him that I was a retail worker because I figured he’d use that info to make me look bad in front of the girl. I started to hold back on my tipping in the live shows because of him. Instead, I gave the girl offline tips and bought stuff from her Amazon wishlist. I also bought some “fan package” that contained Polaroids, worn panties, and a handwritten letter. Receiving dirty panties in the mail was a low point for me and I truly felt disgusted with myself.
Over the last 9 months, I’ve tried to quit cold turkey several times. I started missing her shows and she would message me expressing concern. She would say “it wasn’t the same without you,” and like a sucker, I’d watch her next show and tip like crazy. I’d also give an offline tip to make up for not being there, which doesn’t make any sense at all.
Last week, I nuked my cam site account and all social media associated with this girl. She sent me an email on Saturday to ask if everything was okay. I told her that I could no longer watch her because it was draining me both emotionally and financially. She responded with two words: “Oh, okay.” Admittedly, I was a little angry. I spent thousands of dollars/hours on this girl and was kind of expecting more. I suppose it’s for the best. If the response had been a bit more sincere, I’d probably be obsessively checking out her Snapchat as we speak.
I’m seeing a therapist next week. I’ve never been to a therapist before and not really sure what to expect. I just hope I can leave all of this behind me.
Theodore Lee is the editor of Caveman Circus. He strives for self-improvement in all areas of his life, except his candy consumption, where he remains a champion gummy worm enthusiast. When not writing about mindfulness or living in integrity, you can find him hiding giant bags of sour patch kids under the bed.