My close friends pranked me real bad and I can't move on.

My friends (20M) of 7+ years played a prank on me about a girl who is interested in me and even though it doesn't mean much to them, I'm extremely distressed.

I (20M) was recently talking to me friends (to whom I'm really close and they mean a lot to me and I to them) on video call (we do those for atleast 1-3 hours a day cause we are in studying in different countries). On of my friends, told me that I have a girl I know that might be interested in talking to you. Me who had gone through a really bad breakup 2 years before was quite ecstatic. I didn't have a lot of romantic interaction with women after that as I was either too scared or felt as if I was betraying my love by trying to fall in love again.

Now, when he bring that up to me, I'm really wanted to go ahead with it as I didn't want to be a miserable alone fuck again. I decided to trust him on two condition;

1.) He is someone I've been close to for more than 7 years, so trust comes as a given.

2.) He showed me instagram messages from this friend of his who was interested in me.

I started talking to her 2 days back and it went well. Not too well as it would have seemed suspicious to me, but well enough to help me gain my confidence and lowly self esteem. I was quite happy about this romantic interaction and it quite literally made my days. My mood improved, I started to feel better about myself and I was what you would call a happy person.

Come to today, I talked to her after the F1 race like normal (she was also a big fan apparently) and she video calls me. Now, I'm ecstatic about this cause why wouldn't I be.

To my disaster, it was two of my friend who had been talking to me all this and they were willing to continue this longer but didn't cause they thought "this wasn't the right thing to do."

They had made the instagram account seem genuine and foremost, their word was something I trusted with all my being.

To them it is a prank and I'm overreacting. It was just for 3 days and it's not like I was in love. I guess I was or having a genuine interaction with a female made me feel I was. I am someone who has been starved of love for more than a year and maybe I had enough of it. Maybe I was willing to move on and actually be happy

I had tears in my eyes when I was questioning them about all this! My self confidence is shattered again and I feel ugly as fuck when looking into the mirror.

Your advice regarding this will be appreciated.

TL;DR

My really close friends pretended to be a girl who was romantically interested in me and pranked me.

Edit: I really appreciate all you guys here. Your comments made me realize a lot, you're such great people for feeling like this for a complete stranger. I'm good rn, it wasn't something that lasted a long time so I was thankfully spared from a lot.

I've cut all contact with them atm and as of now, I would rather be alone. They apologized, felt really genuine, but rightnow I'm can't trust anything they say anymore, it's all a farce to me. I only talk to my family (mostly my mother) rightnow. It's a great thing that my midsem break is over, and I'll have to start with university, so I'll have something to keep my mind away from this during the day.

Thankyou.