I didn’t meet her in a bar. I met her through a screen—and I fell hard anyway. I’m an Australian tradesman. She’s a single mum overseas, working on an online platform where attention has a price tag. At first it’s electric: late-night calls, big promises, the kind of connection that makes you stupid on purpose. Then the rules change. Calls become complicated. Affection starts to feel timed. When I ask for closeness, I get dodges. When I pull back, I get pressure. This isn’t a takedown. It’s a first-person account of what it feels like when love gets tangled up with access, money, and distance—and how slowly you can be trained to accept less, until one day you finally don’t. (Names and identifying details have been changed to protect privacy.)