The Fangirl Kind of Love

Love is in the air this February. I saw all types of love this month — from the perfect married couple, the platonic soulmates, the college lovebirds, high school sweethearts, to the non-labeled situationships, casual Hinge dates, even simulationships (talking stage with chatbots, btw).

So many types of love exist. And yet I didn’t find one article on the type of love I am about to talk about… love that almost feels like it isn’t that deep. Or maybe so deeply rooted it borders on stalkerish. Or just platonic — depending on who’s judging.

Imagine this.

You wake up in the morning. The first thing you do is catch up on all HIS missed updates. He lives in a different timezone and you don’t want to miss out on anything. Then you go to work, of course. But even there your mind wanders to him. Every time your coworker says something that reminds you of the inside joke he shares with you, you try to hold your laugh in.

You head home listening to songs that feel like him. You can’t wait to go home — to HIM. You lay around wrapped in all things HIM and watch him hopelessly on a screen, swooning.

He holds a part of your identity. An undeniable truth.

This might seem like a hopeless romantic’s long-distance relationship with a sweet foreign boyfriend, right?

No…

This is an average FANGIRL’s life.

A fangirl love is far different than any other kind of love I mentioned above. The funny part? The person you like doesn’t even know your existence.

But why, oh why, does this love feel so real?

It all starts with a simple thought: hey, that person has an amazing voice (or something like that). Then you start searching him up on Google and that’s it… you enter a rabbit hole of his interviews, TV shows, and just about everything he is in. Your entire feeds gets personalized to all his content. You hopelessly smile whenever his face is flashed on a screen, you can’t help but smile if his name is said (even though you probably mistook something your colleague said, for his name) Reddit suddenly becomes interesting. You read lore from years ago, find other fangirls, and digitally hold hands and scream with them.

Fangirling mostly starts as a sort of escapism — cheering for a person brings you an inexplicable joy even though you don’t know him personally. That joy makes you want to go deeper… to know more about that unknown person. Suddenly, you’re interested to know more about them as a person.

But again, isn’t that what all crushes are? A lack of information.

I just watched a k-drama that perfectly captured this feeling in words:

“Fans want to know everything, even the tiniest little things. Every shade of meaning in a lyric, every tremble in a voice, every look onstage. Because all of it is him.”
— Maeng Se-Na (Choi Soo-young in Idol-I)

Somewhere along the line, you become so used to him that his voice alone is enough to turn your head. Not just because you like it — but because you recognize it. Instantly. Out of a hundred others.

You can identify him with just his eyes in a blurry picture. A partial frame. A shadow.

You know how he behaves when he’s tired. The way his voice drops half a tone. When he’s awkward — that small laugh he does to fill the silence. When he’s genuinely happy — the kind that reaches his eyes before the smile even settles. You don’t even realize it’s happening.

Until one day you do.

And yes, this escapism and intense sonder can extend to fierce maladaptive daydreaming in some — highly fueled by Y/N fanfics. Many teens who stan boy bands have had this phase. There are fanfics for whatever suits your taste. You like one person in a band of 7 (you know who 😉), there’s a separate member FF. You like all 7? There’s one for you. You liked a k-drama that ended with no second season in sight? You get a fan-extended version.

Into weird niches like CEO Alpha Males, Mafia Bosses, fictional Vampires, Werewolves? There are FFs playing right into those twisted fantasies too.

There are categories of fans reading them — soft stans or hard stans. Just fluff or full-on smuts.

Now, I kid you not, fanfics can be proper literary works — if only the author wasn’t an anonymous teenager fawning over her imaginary husband. A lot of these stories have genuinely interesting storylines and hold me in a chokehold. One of them? My favourite k-drama actor as a vampire. (No, I am an adult. And yes, the plot is THAT good.)

Fangirling, just like other romantic relationships, has its ups and downs. You begin asking questions like: Is it worth all my time? What am I even doing?

Those questions are necessary — sometimes they protect your sanity. But they also drain you, because you are battling against yourself, trying not to cross that thin line between liking and obsessing.

And just when you are wondering why you even liked this person in the first place… you listen to his voice one more time. That one old variety show clip from years ago where he was being himself, unfiltered.

You tell yourself — ahh… this is why.

Your support for him is deeply rooted. And you are okay with just watching him from afar. You know he is not exactly who he appears to be on screen. You know he has a personal life beyond it. And you’re okay knowing that.

After all this intense obsession on that one person… somewhere along the way you mature. Not tired of them — just older, and a tad bit wiser. You still support them whenever they release new work. You watch interviews and suddenly realize you are not the 13-year-old fawning with heart eyes 😍 anymore. You’re a Fan(woman?) who still genuinely roots for them.

So yes, this love is not reciprocal. It does not end with closure. You will most likely never meet this love in person (international fans — I know the pain).

And maybe that’s the point.

This kind of love doesn’t demand to be chosen. It doesn’t promise an ending. It just quietly exists — shaping you, staying with you, growing up with you.

⚠️This Love is not meant for beginners.