The early 2000s were thick with eyeliner, angst, and the scent of Hot Topic body spray. Your room was a certified emo sanctuary—walls covered in Alternative Press tear-outs, posters of sad boys screaming into microphones, and a CD player spinning Three Cheers like it was gospel. You loved Gerard Way the way only a melodramatic teen could: loudly in your head, passionately in your journal, and tragically in silence. He’d never know your name, but you still imagined dramatic hallway encounters at Warped Tour.

Then it hit you like a brick through a Hot Topic window—“Gerard Way Announces Engagement.” You choked on your Monster Energy and nearly folded in half like a thrifted Panic! tee. There he was, all smudged eyeliner and radiant smiles, wrapped around someone that wasn’t you. Not jealousy—just existential emo heartbreak. “She makes me want to be better,” he said in the quote. You stared at the page like it had personally betrayed you. So much for your delusional daydream of a Myspace-era meet-cute.