Lonely teenager places ad for friends after childhood cancer took away his social life

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by Emma Dodds |
Published on

19-year-old Jordan Kosovich was diagnosed with leukaemia aged seven

WARNING: This article may reduce you to tears.

Gumtree can literally be used to find anything at all that you're looking for in the world.

Although we've only ever used it to buy a sofa bed, people are now turning to the online notice board platform to look not for a second-hand fridge two miles away, but less materialistic things - like friendship.

And that's what 19-year-old Jordan Kosovich in Perth, Australia is looking for.

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Leukaemia survivor Jordan was robbed of his childhood (Credit: Facebook/ Jordan Kosovich) ©Facebook/ Jordan Kosovich

Jordan posted an ad last Wednesday on the global site entitled: "Wanted: Need Mates/ I'm A Cancer Survivor & 19 Years Old."

Just the title alone is making us well up.

Jordan posted a lengthy explanation of what he was looking for and why on the post: "I have never had a chance to have a proper social life because when I was 7 years old I got diagnosed with cancer (leukaemia) which I had for 4 years. I couldn't be more proud that I survived it, but in all honesty the day I found out I had cancer my childhood stopped in its tracks and it never recovered."

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Jordan's posted the ad on Gumtree last Wednesday (Credit: Gumtree/ Jordan Kosovich) ©Gumtree/ Jordan Kosovich

The cancer survivor went on: "This meant I missed out on a great deal of social time, which made it really challenging for me during primary school because I missed 2 years as I was too sick to go."

But it's the next line that's truly heartbreaking, as Jordan reveals he was bullied at secondary school: "Things didn't get any better for me throughout high school. It was a really horrible experience for me, no-one ever gave me a chance no matter what. They just haven't given me a chance when I just wanted to be friends with them."

Jordan emotionally describes what has given him the push to turn his social life around: "I'm trying everything to turn my life around even though I haven't got a great amount going right for me at the moment. I feel like I have never had any luck so I thought it was the time that I needed to try something different in an attempt to turn my life around.

"I want to feel like a normal 19-year-old for once and just do everything I should be doing at my age."

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The 19-year-old has now been flooded with Facebook messages (Credit: Gumtree/ Jordan Kosovich) ©Gumtree/ Jordan Kosovich

Jordan's appeal for friends has now been viewed over 5,000 times on the ads site. Speaking to MailOnline Australia, he said: "It's the worst thing to have happen to you because the drugs they give you are so strong you lose all your hair, and you get really overweight because one of them makes you eat a lot.

"I was too weak to defend myself, being overweight due to the cancer, plus I was a really shy, quiet kid which made me the perfect target. High school was 100 times worse. I was physically bullied as well as verbally and got hammered on Facebook - until last year I was scared to even use it."

He told the MailOnline that he has since received hundreds of Facebook messages: "I thought posting an ad was a crazy thing to do, but I was really struggling and just thought to try something different, and it’s worked."

We hope everything works out for you, Jordan!

Have you or a loved one suffered from cancer? Did it affect your social life? Let us know over on Facebook and Twitter.

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