HALIFAX – Romantic tragedy struck yesterday when 30-year-old Tina McCullough discovered that Brian Huntington, her imaginary boyfriend of two years, was already secretly married to another woman.
“I can’t believe he would do this to me,” McCullough sobbed while staring at a photo of “Brian,” a stock image she had procured from the internet a few weeks after her friends started asking what her new boyfriend looked like.
“After my last breakup, I needed someone perfect to pull me out of my funk. I came up with Brian after a bit too much tequila. He was handsome, British, had a great job as a physiotherapist for orphaned puppies, and told me I was the love of his life.”
“It was our two year anniversary last week, and I found a note in our communal diary- it said he couldn’t keep up the charade anymore. He confessed to a secret marriage from before I created him and said he was ending our relationship. I mean, how does that even happen?”
McCullough’s best friend explained that, despite being confused by the whole situation, she had her friend’s back unconditionally because “women have to stick together.”
“No one cheats on my girl like that and gets away with it,” she fumed. “I don’t care if you’re a completely fictional man created from a place of potential mental instability, you can’t just get away with shit like this. He’s gonna pay. I mean, I don’t know how, exactly, but I’ll figure it out.”
The blow came at a particularly difficult time for McCullough, who had just told relatives about Brian to stop them from asking her about her nonexistent love life at every single family reunion. She confided that her parents had also recently followed him online.
“Oh my god, I’m going to have to delete his Facebook profile that I made,” she sobbed. “His seven friends will be so disappointed in him. I would know, I created them too so he wouldn’t be lonely. He’s hurt so many people.”
At press time, calls to Tina’s therapist had gone unanswered.
