Blog: Sexting in the substack DMs

how i found love through substack

May 05, 2026

It started with a DM, as many 21st century love stories do. I was new on substack, experimenting around, seeing what it was all about, figuring out what I’d do with it, if I was even going to use it, and I was searching for friends.

I had actually spent a while stalking Dexter’s page to figure out if he was a bad kind of edgy shitposter or my brand. I was just befriending everyone with vaguely my flavour of edge. We started talking and he found out I was not, in fact, from the Pacific North West, like he was, but from Vienna, Austria — a place he had been meaning to one day book a one-way ticket to visit. We then discovered we both had dual citizenship, which meant we had to get married, of course — for passportmaxxing reasons.

We began to talk regularly. He’d update me about all his wacky adventures living in a van, and I’d cheer him on to send me more. I started jokingly referring to him as my substack crush publicly and indirectly flirting accordingly. Like when I saw a note that asked if anyone actually has successfully found love through substack (which I can report on — yes!) and I restacked it saying “let’s see if he books that one way ticket”.

I asked for his help on a poem of mine, and he suggested we call. I thought he meant voice call, but he threw us right into a video call. We didn’t get much done on my poem, but we talked for hours until I was passing out in bed (because I was several hours ahead of him) while he played his keyboard for me. We were now elevated to a blossoming close friendship, growing beyond the bounds of substack mutuals.

One night I got drunk on a spontaneous date and, while my date was in the bathroom, texted Dexter about it, jokingly asking if he was jealous. Feeling pretty, I sent him a selfie of my drunken smile. This was the moment he knew he was more than attracted to me. This was the conversation where we officially established we weren’t just flirting jokingly anymore (though I have since learned that he was never joking).

The next morning I woke up to these messages from him:

And I knew he was the one.

We continued to call all the time — a routine that unspokenly became a habitual given. With this possibility of actually meeting on the horizon, we allowed ourselves to invest in each other and explore whatever was unfolding between us. We were getting to know each other, and the more I learnt about him, the more I liked about him. As we got closer, the trip to Vienna crystallised into something concrete.

If he wanted to, he would.
“He wants to and he will.” — He said that to me.

He saved up — even stopped paying for his wifi — to buy a ticket to come see me. One month after we’d started talking, he flew from Vancouver to Vienna, one way, with only a backpack. Insane? Sounds as much. Recipe for disaster? Perhaps. I’m a love addict to boot. I have a bad history with letting romance run away with me. But we were right.

I thought living together, with him attached to me as a tourist in a foreign country, would drive us to kill each other. But the opposite happened. Our love grew and deepened. We discovered incompatibilities and compensated for them. We have wildly opposing approaches to conflict resolution, but we adjusted for each other’s. We explored and formed our own shared sexuality. We opened up to one another and held each other’s vulnerability softly in our palms.

Still recovering from my psychosis, he let me gain the confidence to let go of the ground I’ve been desperately clinging to and trust that it will stay there. He gave me the courage to travel back inside myself and explore what I find.

Everything we did together, even the moments he worked in the kitchen while I studied in the bedroom, or the times where I’d be playing the sims while he played chess.com, feels holy, elevated simply by his presence. Being with him brought a baseline serenity to my existence.

For a month, we practically lived as husband and wife. And this month has proven to me one thing: if I were to spend the rest of my life sharing it with someone else, let it be like this, with him.

My friends like him. My family loves him. We’re all going to miss him. I think my friends can tell how important to me he is. My grandmother said he and I were Seelenverwandte (soul-related) and that we emenated a certain Ausstrahlung (aura, shine, glow) together. Even I can see it in the way I look at him, in the moments that gaze has been captured. All of my close friends made an effort to see him one last time to say goodbye before he left. My grandma even got him chocolates for the plane ride home.

That’s the heartbreaking part. The griefflood. He had to leave, had to go back home to the other side of the globe. My first wife is Vienna and his is Vancouver. We can’t just leave our lives behind because we fell in love. Fate would have us meet, despite the unlikely circumstances, but what else fate plans for us is hard to tell.

This morning, I woke up, panicked, turned around to embrace the arms of my lover, as I had every morning, only to remember that oh right… I’d dropped him off at the airport last night. My husband is gone. It’s just me again.

He brought with him all the dead poets and authors and musicians he’s fascinated by — my apartment feels so empty now without the company of them all. It feels so quiet without his stims and ticks, one of which — sex fish — I even turned into a poem. There’s nothing for me to do except pick up, clean up, and get on with my life, trusting that there’s more future ahead of us.

Until then, if any of you are interested in Dexter: I can highly recommend him. I have only good things to say about my experience with him. This has been kindest life has been to me in a very long time. It has been an absolute dream to get to spend this time with him.

We’re both ‘01 kids, officially leaving our early 20s this year. Both confronting the mid-20s funk. Growing older but not old yet (despite qualifying for unc status). He was with me for my birthday, and I think that’s representative of what he’s been for me. Finding something new at an age when all my opportunities feel behind me. A sort of rebirth, together. A re-beginning. A sign of what’s still possible; the magic still out there, available to me.

I can’t hold onto it, as we can hold onto nothing in life. But I am grateful for the way he has shaped my trajectory going forward. I am grateful for the ways he will forever be embedded in me. I am grateful to have been blessed with a love like this, whatever may grow from it. What an honour to get to know and be known by someone this deeply.

And, Dex: Vienna waits for you. My family, my friends, me; we’ll always be here, ready for you with open arms. Don’t forget that: Vienna waits for you. And as our public transport wait times would have you know, we’re very patient ;).

my poetry about him: