Pretending to be a girl online, feeling depress, lost & lonely....?

[Tony]

I feel I need to get this out of my chest. It all begun a year ago when I started to make a twitter account to talk to other people about TV shows & animes who has the same interest & hobbies. As a guy, no one really talked to me, so I pretended to be a girl. It didn't take long for lots of people to start talking to me. Being alone & suffering depression my whole life, I quite enjoyed the new found attention. I'm socially awkward, & find it hard to talk to people in real life let alone making friends. I feel that being online is the only escape for me, & to feel accepted even though I'm pretending to be a girl. It's the only way I can freely express myself without being judged. :/

Not long after I met these two girls. One is from German & the other is from Switzerland. All three of us met via twitter & started talking a lot, due to the same interest & hobbies we've shared. I even made a facebook account to join them to talk more via facebook inbox. I told them that I was a hairdresser, I used a random picture of a really attractive girl with purple hair I found on the net, & use that picture as the identity of my online girl persona. It's been one year already, & I have grown really closed to them. They have always been there for, listening to my stories and making me laugh, smile, & bring me a joy of friendship that I haven't experienced in a really long time. I really care & love them as friends. But at the same time I feel very guilty & awful lying to them about my identity. It's eating me up deeply in the inside, but I cannot bring myself to tell them the truth. They have trusted me so much to open up about their personal life. As a guy, they would never tell me such things or open up. It's gotten to the point where I can't even function normal without them. I truly care for them & don't want to hurt their feelings in any way. i don't want to leave them. I wish I could be the friend the great girl they think I am. >_<

I don't know what to do anymore :/