Fear and Pain

I love learning, and usually from experience... but not this time, not this topic, maybe not anymore. I am forging the world of dating and I have a very intense love/hate relationship with it. The excitement of meeting someone new, getting to know them and those first conversations are great... but then actually caring, blows. I function so well (eh, I function at my own pace) when its just me doing my thing. Then a cute boy gives me even an ounce of attention and my little world gets knocked off its axis. I feel like if I slow down to actually interact with someone, I will loose my momentum and probably just die.

Honestly even the slightest inkling of rejection feels like the Former abandoning me all over again.

I know its an over reaction, I know I am making small things big things... but its really how I feel. The idea of dating someone, liking someone, causes my breath to become short and my eyes to well. With the first feelings of attraction I can already feel the pain of the end. Follow me on this. With the beginning comes the middle which leads to the end. I know there is an end because I am not getting married. If I am not getting married why should I start the whole process of letting someone destroy me again. I have worked so hard in the last year to process, to discover myself again, to find my footing and I refuse to throw that away.

I can't help but feel that I want relationships to go away.

I have my friends, and the ones I have kept are the ones I know won't hurt me.

Really thinking through this I realize that more than anything I am terrified of being hurt. I am so scared to let someone close. To the point that I am little petrified. Unable to move from where I am. I have to shake this feeling because I have a life to live.

So the verdicts still out,

but in my opinion until this paralyzing fear is gone, dating should be re-returned to the back burning.

Or do I need to just rip the band aid off?