Thank you. It's okay if you didn't read it. As I said, I just needed to type. Sometimes I do that.

He was very interested in the beginning. We are actually very, very compatible; this is not at all the issue. We acknowledge that we're compatible. On our first date, we joked about how we don't really feel online dating matches our personalities (we both prefer to get to know people as friends first) and after I pulled away quite a bit in the next week or so and he still said he wanted to get to know me, I said I would like to if we could do it as friends. I became pretty smitten, and I thought we were on the same page. He didn't realize, until I was flirting via text, that I was in it for anything more than friendship and said he had thought about it at that point and realized he felt he needed to get his shyt together before "trying to plant roots in someone else's pot" He doesn't have his own apartment in town (nowhere to take a girl, if you know what I mean), may be finding a job out of town/state, has some large debt...all legit things that I felt were red flags myself in the beginning. But the more I overthink it the more I feel that if he really wanted to be with me, he would. However...he's completely right and it's best that we don't date.

I am going to be 38 soon. I've been hearing "You haven't met the right person yet" since I was 16. I know you're trying to help, but at some point, when I keep meeting people and they keep rejecting me (I've never broken up with anyone), that phrase has to rest. I'm doing really well in all other aspects of my life because I can deal with them on a very superficial level i.e. they don't require me to be so vulnerable and transparent or to trust another person with my heart. And I'm okay with that. In this area, I am stumped. I've overdosed twice in the past because of relationships which hit the skids, and my coping skills when it comes to conflict, rejection, and being left are pretty nonexistent. I've tried through therapy, but after literally a decade and a half I've barely made a dent. The only thing I've done is that I can now recognize when I'm verbally pushing someone away, and I can tell them I need to disconnect for the time being. Also, I don't manipulate anymore. I have learned to say plainly what I feel/need. But it's still not easy to be with me, and I still cannot handle the fear of or especially actual rejection.