"Can't help but wait"

I am very neurotic and insecure, but I am also very melodramatic. After really thinking about whatever emotions provoked my earlier post, I figured that I may have overreacted a tad bit. I had a mental rundown of all the women I have had some type of relationship with and came to the conclusion that while I haven't been as lucky with women as I would like, I am far from being a lost cause. And that's always the case with me. I go from one extreme to the next. One day I think I am God's gift to women and the next day I am Quasimodo. I guess a lot of my anxiety comes from the fact that I'm 22 and I haven't really had a lengthy, meaningful relationship, while majority of the people around me have. I don't want to rush anything, but I am getting kind of antsy.

Lately, I have been hearing a lot about timing. Timing is everything, right? Just being an adult is hard, add in the necessity for companionship, it is damn near unbearable. Maybe if I had a better idea of what I wanted, then my existence could be a little more fulfilling.

What's more important love or lust? For me, it's love. Always has been. Sex is wonderful, but it's not that meaningful. I desire a deeper connection, I long to be understood. My need to be satisfied physically isn't as important as my need to be satisfied mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

And to find that deeper connection, I have to take my time. It's not something you can rush, it has to be natural. So in the meantime, all I can do is live and learn.

"I don't know what it is with females, but I'm not too good at that shit"

Every time I hear this line, from Kanye West's single "Runaway," I think Amen. That line is almost too accurate, for me anyways. I could not put it into better words myself. And what really sucks, is that I love women. Not in a purely sexual way either, I truly love women. Women have been the axis in my life that has allowed me to reach whatever level I'm on at this moment. So it hurts to think that I'm unable, not unworthy, to be loved by a woman. Some people are destined to not find a mate, some people are destined to stumble from psuedo-relationship to pseudo-relationship until they die. There's no point in me not being honest with myself. I feel like I have so many issues that any woman who would want to love me, care for me, or comfort me, would be wasting their time, because eventually it would be all for naught. I'm so neurotic, paranoid and insecure that I find it hard to live with myself and only women bring out these feelings. And they are so strong. I have been told that "one has to love themselves before someone else can love them." I feel like I do love myself, but if I don't, how do I get to the point where I do? There's no easy answer.

Coming from a kid who had very low self-esteem and low self-image, I feel like I have come so far, but it seems like all the work I have put in to reach the point I am at now, evaporates when it comes to matters of the opposite sex. I hate feeling insecure and jealous, but as hard as I try to suppress those feelings, they never leave. I'm my own worst enemy.

I can tell if a girl might be interested in me. There's always signs, and I have become adept at paying attention to these tells. But I'm never certain, and that uncertainty leads to my ultimate downfall.

There's this girl at my job that I'm interested in. Interested is such a formal word, so truthfully I like this girl. She's funny, cute, has pretty eyes -- I'm a sucker for eyes -- and doesn't seem to mind being around me. I know I like her. The big question is does she like me? I could name off a bunch of things that would lead one to believe that this girl likes me, but its a few things that make me think that she doesn't like me as much as I like her. Honestly, they're probably minute things, but those things tend to eat away at me. This is how it is with every woman I deal with. I let one drop of doubt in and the floodgates open.

I wish I could go to this girl, or any girl, and be upfront about everything, but I can't. From my experiences, that doesn't seem to go to well. Granted I am much wiser in my dealings with women now than I was in the past, but there's a lot of risk involved with allowing, not even yourself, but your feelings to be rejected. Because feelings have no justification, they just are.

Why can't I just be normal?