This is why I'm single. Because my ego/self-esteem/whatever when it comes to relationships is pretty much zero. I do hear what you all are saying, and I wish I could just step out and be normal about this stuff; it really won't kill me, I get it. But I have such distortions about myself when it comes to this that it's like I'm frozen in place. On one hand, in some areas, I feel pretty darn good about myself and feedback from other people confirms the things I believe. But in the realm of dating, I think, "OMG, I'm just so...ugh. No. What if [insert guy] is embarrassed that I'm interested?" I think I'm such a bad ***. Sometimes I am. But when it comes to this, I'm so, so not. And that's pretty unattractive.

There are reasons that go beyond how I was raised, the negative messages I was brought up with that feed into this. When I was in my early 20's, I was a member of a church which leaned more toward courting rather than dating, and I hit it off with one guy when I first got there. We were "hanging out" (that's what it was called) a lot for quite some time before he dropped me like a stone, stating that he felt like God was telling him I wasn't the one. I was devastated, and the leadership in my college group were telling me that he just wasn't hearing God correctly. It became so that I read into everything he said and did, looking for a "sign." It was a HUGE fiasco. In the meantime, the other guys were pretty much ignoring me, telling me I just wasn't "wife material." I wasn't demure enough or submissive enough, according to them. This was occurring in my early 20's, during the time when I should have been freaking getting comfortable in my dating skin so to speak...and pretty much no one wanted me because I either wasn't wife material or I was "promised" to someone else. I finally settled in with the only guy who paid any real attention to me, which pretty much derailed my life (I was already on the way since that was when my depression was getting really bad) and we crashed and burned about a year later. After him I left the church, started hanging out with my college friends at the bar several nights a week, and just went home with guys who were pretty black and white about what they wanted...at least they were honest. Once I got out of that phase, I dated my friend's husband's friend for two months who, last time I heard, was wanted for murder. That was in 2009. There have been a few dozen first dates met online since then. And that's about it. When I'm at work or school, I feel super-confident; I know I'm in my element and on my game because that is what I know. I'm smart, I do what I do well, and my coworkers and professors give me feedback to that effect. In the realm of dating, I feel like an absolute failure. I am not in my element. I don't know what I'm doing. I have never had a relationship which didn't go down in flames, or for which I wasn't made to feel like trash. I wish I could ask B out, but I both think he deserves better and am scared to death that he knows this and would completely recoil.