Cyd,
When you meet the right person, the fears you now have will be exciting to overcome. The thoughts you have now only fuels that fear but you have to see them as irrational and not practical because in the present moment, you don’t have a partner to work on these things with. See this experience as an opportunity to better yourself. The better you are, the better you can care for your partner. It’ll be easier to overcome your fear when you have someone worth overcoming them for and you too will benefit from this. It will make the experience with them even more beautiful.

Expose yourself in a safe way to your anxieties about this and slowly begin overcoming them one step at a time. You seem like a good person and if you push yourself to commit to working on bettering yourself, you will undoubtedly find success. Go slow, know what the real issue is, and take steps to correct them.

Remember that you’re not being held at gunpoint to feel the way you do. It’s a choice. Commit your thoughts to thinking more positive about this, see yourself overcoming these obstacles, even if you don’t feel worthy, always know that you are.

Thepathofaronin.blogspot.com is my personal blog and may offer further advice.

Good luck, my friend!

Hey Cyd,

I’m going through a similar situation like you are. Have you been in a relationship before? I’ve never been in a relationship…although I have had numerous crushes on people. Reading your story, and Matt’s response of course, I’ve realized that people have to remember to see others as individuals. Sometimes people don’t want to be in a relationship that has NOTHING to do with you. Maybe they got through a rought breakup or a divorce, someone died, or they just prefer the peace of being single without wasting their time, effort, and energy on a person. I’ll use myself as an example.

Since I was 19, I had a crush on a famous singer. I’ve told my friend about him so many times, I said to myself, “Why are you playing this record inside your head? He doesn’t know you exist, and you don’t know who he is without the fame, so it’s best to let go.” Believe me, it hasn’t been easy. The longest I went without anything related to this person was a month. But, luckily, I have a huge family, and events that happen everyday, so that should take my mind off of him. This isn’t the first time I had a crush on a singer. I also like another guy from another band (guess I have a thing for musicians) and it was easy to get over him because I was a teenager at the time.

Another guy I liked, we had a connection, but I started to get clingy, and he persisted that I take better care of myself because he’s not always online to chat.

Bottom Line: Don’t be overly clingy, but don’t be a stranger either. Just be yourself.

You say you want to be in a relationship but “feel uncomfortable when I think about having the seriousness of that commitment and the obligation to the other person”. That alone tells me you’re not ready. Why would you be afraid of someone liking you, what’s not to like? I say this: when you meet someone that pushes all your buttons and when you realize you’re someone worth spending time with, it’ll clear up.