pretty damn lonely! (long)

[katy_katt]

okay, maybe I just need a sounding board but I feel like my love life is in a rut and it always will be.

 

I'm 25 years old, not that bad looking, and haven't found it difficult to attract guys. But the guys I attract are never the ones I want to be with. Once in a while I will find somebody I like a lot, but they tell me it wouldn't work or they don't want to be in a relationship, or something. I've been in three 'long-term' relationships -- the first when I was 15 and it lasted for a year. The second at 17 which lasted for about 3 years. We had a child together but broke up just before I found out I was pregnant and I gave my boy up for adoption. The problems with these two relationships were mainly my fault. I never really wanted to be with them in the first place, I was changing as I grew and ended up breaking up with both of these guys b/c I wanted to be able to move on in life. The last relationship I had when I was 21 and lasted about 2 years, with a whole bunch of problems. Yet at the core, it was the same problem besides all the others. This time I really did like him but the relationship was doomed from the start...constant fighting and bouts of jealousy on his part. In all of these relationships I also felt like they didn't know the 'real me' as well, and I felt compelled to act a certain way whenever I was around them. With that last one I finally began acting like myself and it soon turned really ugly. Then about six months ago I met a wonderful guy and we dated for three months, which I know doesn't sound very long but it seems like years in my head. There was nothing about him I wanted to change, I liked him from the beginning, for who he was, and I could actually be myself around him. I brought him home for Christmas to meet my family and confessed that I was falling in love with him on Christmas night. He told me he was falling in love with me too, and we stayed up for hours just talking and holding each other. The day after we got back, he went back home to see his family, promising to return in a week. There were other circumstances involved -- he lost his job just before Xmas and was seriously in debt and behind on his rent -- at the end of the week he phoned to tell me that he was offered a job back home and he was going to take it. But it would only be temporary until he could get his bills paid off. This was hard, but I understood his reasons for doing so. I ended up having to move back home myself shortly after, but we talked a lot on the phone and made our plans to visit each other, etc. Then one day out of the blue (the day before Valentine's Day) he told me that he wasn't able to do this long-distance thing and that we should go our separate ways. But oh, we 'could still be friends'. Needless to say, I was crushed and moped around for a couple of weeks.

 

My problem is that upon meeting him I finally felt like I could settle down and be with somebody, no matter what happened, but that 'somebody' was him. And now that I saw the opportunity I really want it. I tried dating somebody back here at home which was nothing short of a disaster. He worshipped me, gave me gifts, but I felt absolutely nothing for him and the thought of even having sex with him turned me right off. I couldn't even kiss him. After trying hard to stand it for 2 weeks and not being able to, I broke up with him.

 

Now I'm sitting here back home, where all of my old friends moved away from. I have one female friend who is happily married and constantly trying to set me up with guys. I still miss the guy I was dating like crazy even though it's been 2 months, I can't stop thinking about him. And it seems like every other guy I meet has no substance. I know I should give it time but it seems like the more time has passed the more I want him back, the less I feel like dating somebody else, and it's driving me up the wall! He emailed me last month wanting to see me again and then I didn't hear from him, which pissed me off because it only made me think of him more. I am depressed and feeling very alone. I had several friends I could go out and have a good time with in the city I used to live in, but nobody here. I am beginning to wonder if it will always be like this: the guys I meet that I want to be with always leave and I'm stuck with the ones I don't really want. I'm starting to question if I should even bother dating again, just resign myself to being alone the rest of my life and keep myself unavailable to anyone. I don't want to hurt anymore, I don't want to be hurt anymore. Does this end?

 

[Tony T]

YOU WRITE: " I am beginning to wonder if it will always be like this: the guys I meet that I want to be with always leave and I'm stuck with the ones I don't really want."

 

Love is more about timing than anything else. If the timing is wrong, all the feelings in the world are for naught. You caught this last love at the wrong time. When a person's financial world has gone awry, they rarely have the energy for anything else. I wouldn't was the energy waiting for him.

 

As for your statement, which I quoted above, this guy seems the first one you ever really wanted to be with over a long period so I think you're a bit early to think that everybody you have true feelings for will leave.

 

You're still very, very young and have a long life ahead of you. You started extremely early in life having long term relationships so you haven't had a lot of time to get out in the world and experience its joys. We weren't put on this planet ONLY for the purpose of meeting somebody and settling down. While that may be part of it, there's a lot more to life to enjoy.

 

Take your time. Take some breaths. Give yourself time to get over this last relationship. You may want to call him one more time to see how he's doing but don't put yourself in a position of getting hurt. Once that's resolved, give yourself time to be OK with being alone and getting to love yourself and enjoy your own company.

 

You won't love yourself sufficiently until you make changes to like yourself more...a lot...enough to be comfortable just being you and knowing you are good and worthy.

 

In time, you will heal from the past. Then you can get out and date. And don't think you have to have a relationship with every guy you meet...which seems to be the case in your past. You've made some very bad choices, especially early on. The decision to be committed to another person is a very serious one and shouldn't be taken lightly.

 

You have to take full and complete responsibility for finding the right person for yourself. There are many out there but you must find them. If the right person just came into our lives everytime we walked out the door, wouldn't that just be a joy. But it doesn't work that way. Give your selections some thought. Evaluate their behavior. Take an inventory of what you have in common with them. If they don't meet up to your standards, don't spend years with them. End it and move on.

 

Start paying more attention. And don't despair. You will find the right person but only when you realize that doing so takes a bit more energy than you've been willing to exspend...and just because another person seems right for you doesn't mean you are the right person for them. It has to be mutual.

 

The way it works seems to be the best way...and even then, relationships take lots and lots of work. Maybe you should also read some books on relationships, how they are found, how they are conducted, how they succedd and what causes them to fail.

 

In any case, you've been going about something wrong here and if you continue in this manner, you will continue making the same mistakes...and you don't want to do that. You deserve somebody nice in your life...but this is a cruel, complicated world and you now have to rise to the occasion.

 

Best of luck to you!