There are "steps" that a person should take before getting involved in a relationship, steps for SELF first.

The steps are first to figure out who "you" are as a person and that won't happen until you get an education and find out what "you" would do best in and become self sufficient. Then, it's important to get one's own place and learn how to be "self" sufficient for a while. This is important in that you will "always" know you "can" be self sufficient if you need to. This is important so that you don't end up staying in a toxic relationship simply because you are dependent and don't have any experience with being on your own. Going from being dependent on parents right into a relationship that also entails dependency is not giving "self" a chance to grow and be independent "first".

When my daughter started college and I sat in a meeting for parents, the speaker talked about how the first year is "scary" and often these young students want to run back home, "don't let them" because they need to get used to being on their own and a lot of students try to go home. They need to learn to adjust and they "do" get over that initial fear and eventually do adjust.

It's important to understand that we all learn by "doing". It's not looking at how something is done, it's actually "doing it" that matters when it comes to "gaining".

A lot of individuals make the mistake of getting into a relationship where they go from home to existing away from home but with someone else. When they do that they experience "growth" and it's not unusual for a person to get to a point where they have grown by doing only to look at their partner and no longer want to be "with" that partner because they have outgrown that partner, this can happen with either partner, or both in the relationship.

To sit at a young age and think about "what is desired" in a partner without taking the steps to "learn" how to do life more independently, is not going to actually be fair to self in determining what would really be a good long term partner.

For example, I spent years teaching young children how to ride horses. They all talked about wanting a horse/pony of their own and what it should look like. However, unless one actually takes the time to experience "riding" and especially riding different ponies and horses, that individual is not going to actually know "what" kind of horse or pony would actually be best suited for them. Not only that but if a person doesn't spend any time actually taking care of these animals, they won't know if they actually want to do all that work in caring for these animals, and it's also expensive.

Also, if you have this idea of what "you" want in someone, what are "you" bringing to the table? This could be part of not getting past the first date. However, finding the right person for a relationship is not so easy, you are not alone in struggling to find the right partner.