I’m only 22, not exactly wise yet about true love. I was in a very heated relationship with a person I had the strongest feelings for. After two months, he stopped calling. Only on a chance meeting a week later did he break my heart by saying he was “too good for me.” A month later I got back with him, only to have my heart pummeled once more. This happened a third time, too. I know I was dumb to keep going back, but I sincerely wanted it to work. Now, over a year later, I have become excessively picky, overly defensive and emotional when any man gets close to me. Will I ever be able to drop my defenses for a guy again?
Picky isn’t so bad. And you’re right, it takes lots of practice to learn anything important about love. One thing you are seeing: Depending on how they were raised, guys can lack core emotional skills and be really scared of intimacy, fearing it will swallow them whole. So they say and do weird things to maintain distance. Remember, not everything that happens in a relationship is about you. If you approach dating more or less as research, you’ll not only discover that there are lots of guys out there who are more together, you’ll learn to better regulate your level of interest as well.
