EXO‘s Chen recently announced his engagement and that his fiancee was pregnant. Generally speaking, that has been met well internationally, with most EXO fans seemingly being mature enough now that they were more happy for him than anything else. Unfortunately, domestically the news has been taken anything but well and the general sentiment is closer to wanting him out of the group.

Perhaps nothing summarized the emotions better than this unhinged letter that an EXO stan wrote.

You take responsibility over the person that you love, but I’m sad that you’re not taking responsibility over the person who loves you. I regret trying to grab onto what I should’ve let go. EXO is a group that will forever be my youth, but because of Jongdae, this image is gone. Were we only a business relationship? … You didn’t make a promise to us forever? I thought that if we had to set priorities, we should’ve followed those priorities and made so we understand each other, but right now, you actions are just showing that fans and you were just a business. That’s why I’m so disappointed and my heart hurts even more Jongdae-yah. You were the “trustful Chen” and now your labels changed to “premarital pregnancy” and “kid’s dad” etc. my heart just hurts so much, it just hurts. The road that we still have to walk together is still long, I don’t want us to stop now, and you either. Did you want to walk on the way that the fans paved for you? You’re too selfish Jongdae-yah. I knew you didn’t want to do SNS. And you probably don’t look at the comments on Youtube either. So there’s not much ways we can communicate but I still tried to write something… The letter that you threw away. I’ve been crying for so many hours being confused, I was pitying myself. I loved you, but I think that I will love you in the future too. That’s why Jongdae-yah just say “I’m sorry” once. I think this should be taking each other into consideration. I received an alarm and I was so happy thinking that it could’ve been the news of your solo concert but my hands started to tremble and my tears started to fall out as I dropped my phone. You probably didn’t know how I felt right? Happy (t/n: no pronoun). Still be happy.

Yikes.

Admittedly, years ago I probably would’ve posted this just to laugh at the person for being such a nutcase. Now, however, I’m older and have less faith in humanity, so like whatever, you know? wiser, and it’s more disturbing than anything else. Not one of us is immune to bias on some level, so the emotions tied to the investment is relatable on some level, but these types of people are just almost scary to me now.

Still, in a way, I almost appreciate this level of honesty. It’s straightforward as to why they’re mad at an idol and they didn’t bother leaking shit or pretending that it’s not about the dating or whatever. And I think it serves as a nice reminder going forward that when an idol’s relationship is outed and rumors or whatever come out about them, that we should try to see through that kind of bullshit because this type of note is usually at the core of the issue more than anything else. You’d think I wouldn’t have to reinforce this point, but over and over when dating news comes out, people just take the shit that follows about attitude or whatever at face value instead of sorta seeing the ploy for what it is.