What is it about dating that freaks me out? You see I am not one for small talk and it seems that small talk is a prerequisite of dating. There is so much anticipation, nervousness and the need to impress. What if he doesn’t like me? What if I don’t like him? Can you leave after one drink? What is the polite number of drinks and small talk you need to make before you can leave? Perhaps this is why I have bailed on two dates in the past two days. Dating freaks me out and yet how can I expect to meet someone without going on a date? I have tried the whole online dating thing before and it seemed that I was meeting fuck wit after fuck wit. Guys who only want sex, and don’t get me wrong, sex is good, I like sex, but in my maturing age I have come realise that empty sex only leads me to feel more inadequate about the person I am than I felt before the sex. Making love, however corny that may sound, is so much more appealing to me than empty sex. I’ve never been able to be the girl that can have a “friends with benefits” relationship and I think that this is because I end up becoming vulnerable in this situation. Vulnerability is perhaps one step above dating that freaks me out.

I want the kisses that take your breath away and the hand holding and the hand in the small of your back as you are lead into a room full of people that makes you feel safe and secure and warm. But how am I supposed to get there when I can’t even let myself go on a date? I have hang ups on men. Sure I’ve had my share of bad relationships but so has everyone else in life, so what makes me so different from the next person? Why is it that when the possibility of a relationship even raises its head slightly that I have to fight every urge in my body not to run? How did I end up getting so damaged that the mere thought of a date can be enough to make me want to run and hide from the world and isolate myself in the smallness of my apartment?

So how do I get over this? How do I tell myself to harden the fuck up and move on with life? Do I just say fuck it??? I don’t care if you hurt me, do not like me or use me for sex, and just go for it? How can I keep myself safe and yet still open to the experience of life, dating and perhaps one day love? I have only ever loved one person in my entire life, and the only reason I could love that person was because he was unable to love me the same way. He was married and although he loved me, although he loved me more than his wife, I knew he would never leave her, and so it was safe for me. It was safe to love and to be loved unconditionally and with all my faults. I never needed to be anything other than myself; all damaged and fucked up in the head and he still loved me. He was the only person who never turned away from me because they did not understand me. He never understood me, and yet he never left me. In the end, it was I who left him. I had the courage to know that there was more to life than being loved in parts and on terms that were out of my control. So if I left him, does this not mean that I want the kind of love that lasts a lifetime? The kind of love that makes you ache inside when you re not with the other person?

I know I am only protecting myself in all of this, but I also know that in protecting myself I have been able to isolate myself from the entire world and all the experiences in it. So how do I stop doing this? How do I remain protected, aloof and yet obtainable? How can I protect my heart and still keep it open for love? I need to get this right. I want to get this right, because as much as I tell myself I don’t need to get married, I don’t need to have children and make a home with someone, a family with someone, I really want to. I want all those things little girls dream of and yet these are the very things I never dreamt of as a child. I never believed in that whole biological clock a ticking…but Christ… I think mine is tick, tick, ticking.

I want to be a better person. I want to be able to let go of control for once in my life and take the dream with both hands and open my mouth wide and scream “YES”, “Yes, I take life for all it has to offer and everything in it.” I want to feel love and see love and to not be constantly afraid of it.

So if anyone out there has any advice or ideas on how I can open my heart and yet remain protected… please, please let me in on the tips.