Things started between 18m and I [28f] around the beginning of the COVID-19 shut down. As we are all well aware, this whole pandemic situation has been rather odd and something we’ve all had to manage adjusting to. Personally, it was very difficult for me when it first started. I was furloughed from my job and I live alone, so the isolation was particularly hard and I was just really lonely. I had known 18m for a couple of years because he is the brother of one of my friends [25m], and he also hung around frequently at the place I work, so we’d interacted quite a bit. 18m, who I’ll refer to as Eric, was lonely and struggling during the shutdown too since his senior year of high school was basically cut short and he couldn’t see any of his friends. The uncertainty of everything made it even worse.