Ghosted after confessing to the guy I have been crushing on 4 years

TLDR: Got ghosted by my crush of 4 years, also technically my first crush. I knew he would reject me but I had requested him to not ghost me, but I think I have been ghosted.

I am 18, I have never dated anyone and I just got ghosted a month ago. Almost a month ago. I had this crush of 4 years and I genuinely loved him even as a friend. After tons of encouragement from my friends, and random motivation, I confessed to my crush. He is an online crush and we have only chatted in texts but the texts and updates on our lives were the best things ever to me. I have had many friends, male and female, but his texts ALWAYS brighten up my day. Even if they are about something trivial. He used to talk about k-pop, I am not into k-pop, but I had listen. I HATED politics, but when he started talking about it, I was suddenly interested and even started paying attention to the news. Anything he talked about was interesting and I would like topics to talk to him about, though the topics came easily enough too. Or that's what I felt at least. He has dated once, and it was right after we had started chatting as friends. That was a long distance online relationship too, and he got cheated on, so I totally understand if he doesn't want to go through it again. I also look nothing like his crushes, or his 'type', so I lowkey knew I would get rejected but IDK what got into me that night and I just confessed to him over text. I have seen his face, he has seen my face through a single photo. I have heard his voice and I would still swoon over it, which is absurd and weird, Idk. But that's the one of the two guys I have ever really crushed on (irl, non-celeb crush). I had practically begged him to not ghost me, even if he ends up rejecting me. Like I am fine with rejection, I just wanted to, really wanted to get this load off my chest.

I had an idea that I would get rejected, and I didn't want to get ghosted, since I really do value the friendship we had. Moreover, I also didn't want to burden him with my feelings, but it got to a point I no longer wanted to keep it up. I would rather get rejected and accept it, return to being friends. Maybe it will help me move on too. But nope. I have received no response. I am not sure if he has just not seen it, since we are online friends on freaking discord. I didn't know how heartbreaking this could be, even though I had prepared myself over and over.

I have always been the type to want serious relationships, but as the valentines approach this year, I have been so desperate recently that I actually, without realizing why, wanted to get with someone. Anyone. Maybe not even for a serious relationship, just to be with someone. Have some experience with dating. And I just realized that I would normally hate that. I can't try to get with people to move on from others, or maybe it's also from the confusion about my sexuality, if I am bi, and maybe because I feel behind the curve from all my friends who have dated at least once. I just never found someone who genuinely liked me as a person (I am a hardcore romantic so the few people who had a crush on me, I ended up rejecting them. But they didn't really like me...I can tell as much. One of them disrespected me, one was trying to hook up with other girls and one was a good friend but would lowkey not hesitate to hit his gf. RED FLAG. Never got far with the few other guys who I had romantic tension with).