Worried About Winding Up Alone and Social Advice

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I have never had a love life.
I've never attracted any romantic admirers or dated anybody, and I'm terrified of dying alone. I'm inclined towards weird behavior that turns people off to me, and I've since broken several gross habits that likely turned others off to me even further. Truthfully, I never really cared about how I appeared to others before until I met the boy of my dreams, though my attraction to him developed into an unhealthy obsession that got me hospitalized after I got heartbroken when he started dating someone else. Every time I become infatuated with someone, it becomes an obsession, albeit it was never much of an issue before because I only fell in love with fictional people. I'm still struggling with my obsessions over this boy, although I have recovered a bit. He came into my life at a point where I really had no friends or any other distractions, so my obsessiveness got really out of hand and I couldn't stop following him around, even when I wanted to leave him alone because I knew that was all he wanted and I knew I was making him crazy. I was also worried that he would get bored with me and not talk to me, so I wound up trying so hard to be interesting, funny, and engaging that I wound up making a lot of uncomfortable sexual jokes and unintentionally sexually harassing him. He's since pardoned me for my actions and we're pretty good acquaintances now, but he's always in my fantasies and I'm unsure when I'll be over him because I don't know what to replace him with and I normally never got over crushes before until I found someone more appealing, and then they became my next obsession. I met another boy over summer vacation once, but have since lost contact with him and he never seemed interested, anyway, and I know I likely made him uncomfortable a couple of times too.

I want to try online dating one day, but I'm terrified of being kidnapped or assaulted even if I took the proper safety precautions beforehand and notified good friends or relatives when I was going out with someone I met online, or scheduled our first few dates as double dates with good friends I could depend on to protect me if something happened. I think it would be the best solution for me and would be a good way for me to start a relationship, since no man has ever gotten attracted to me from meeting me in person first. It would also give me time to fall in love with the idea of being with a certain person before meeting them in real life, because if I were already attracted to someone else and my fantasies revolved around that one person, I wouldn't be easily satisfied with someone else, especially not right away. I'm also picky with men and get turned off to them easily, so perhaps if I learn their good qualities before learning their faults I could fall for them a bit more easily and not get turned off so easily, and the same could go for them, because I feel like I turn people off very easily because they can tell that I'm "off" and they become uncomfortable. I also say and do weird things that turn them off, and I'm trying to break that habit, but it's just tough for me.

I know that relationships are not everything, but I don't want to die alone and I feel like I'm headed down that path and can't see myself with anyone. I've felt a lot of inadequacy since I was rejected by that boy and just want to have a love life, but I feel like no one wants me and I don't want anyone other than him, though I would be open to new people if I found someone. I feel less attractive than everybody else, like I'm that creepy weirdo that nobody wants to date, and the fact that I did a lot of creepy things when I was pursuing that boy doesn't make me feel any better about myself. I know a lot of aspies die alone, or that people with Asperger's may be predisposed to stalking behavior, and I don't want to be that "creepy autistic kid who stalks anyone who's nice to her for five seconds.'' My therapist says I'm very insightful and intelligent and funny for my age, but I'm not sure how to show that to people who I want to see it; only the weirder side to me that scares and freaks people out. I want romance, and I don't care as much if I never get married if I can just have a few relationships, just to prove to myself that somebody would want to date me, or a good boyfriend. I don't care if they don't end well or they're not perfect, just as long as I can have someone, at least for a little while. Kids my age date, hook up, split up, and hook up again, and I have no clue how they do it so easily or how easily they can get over someone and move onto someone else, or date someone they don't care for that much. I get mad when I hear girls complaining about men and boyfriends, while I'd be thankful just to know that someone likes me enough to date me, or that I'm capable of attracting a boyfriend. They don't know how lucky they are to be normal, attractive, social, neurotypical teenagers with friends and boyfriends and prom dates, and the boy I like is just that; a normal, attractive, social, neurotypical teenager who will eventually grow up, get married, and start a family... and do all of it without me, who might not ever get to do some of those things at all.

You might get some helpful replies if you would add spaces between your paragraphs ...
That big long wall of text with no breaks can be very hard for some of us to read!

OK, thanks

To me, the trouble seems to be that you are viewing men as objects, potential "feathers in your cap" or trophies to be caught rather than respecting them as human beings. You don't care if you get married. You don't care about a guy as a person worthy of being treated with respect. You just want someone to be attracted to you. So basically, that doesn't sound like love to me, it sounds like it's all about you, your needs, your wants, and your obsessions.

A worthwhile man is not going to want anything to do with a one-sided relationship like that.

You say you're picky about men and want to know about their good qualities.

Well, it works both ways. What good qualities do you have to offer a man?

You describe how "Kids my age date, hook up, split up, and hook up again," ... what a shame that we live in such a cheap, throwaway culture where people are disposable and taken out to the curb like garbage after they've been used. Very sad that the adults raising those kids, and those influencing the culture, failed to do a better job. Kids your age deserve better.

Advice: Work on yourself. Care about others.

I'm sorry if it seems as if I don't care about men. I'll admit that some of my desires are selfish and I've yet to experience true, unselfish love; in fact, I think I may be just in love with the idea of love. That doesn't mean I don't want to experience love, though; I'm just afraid that I'll never get to. In some ways, I guess I do see men as "feathers in my cap", which I'll try to avoid now that you've pointed it out to me, but at the same time I really want to experience a relationship in all its possible complications and glories. My other problem is, most men don't even know the selfishness of some of my inner desires and still aren't attracted to me just because I'm stranger than everybody else, and I come off as the "special needs girl" too weird or annoying or childlike to date.

As for personal qualities that a man might look for in me... my problem is, I know I have some good qualities, it's just that my stranger qualities come out more often and scare people away. I think I could attract somebody eventually, but I don't know how and it seems like no matter what I do I'm just not good enough for anybody. I know I'm not perfect, and I know men aren't perfect, either. Even if there were such thing as a perfect man, I wouldn't think I was on his level or worthier of his affections than anybody else. I really try not to idealize men, either, but sometimes I think that I may anyway, or I'm too infatuated to notice or care for their faults, like I was with my first crush. Love is blind, after all.

Believe me, I want to respect a man in a relationship. I'd never want to be a demanding or selfish girlfriend, and when I really like someone I want to make them as happy as possible, hence all of my previous misguided attempts at wooing the object of my unrequited affections. But you are right in that I sometimes have difficulties in putting others first, I'll admit that. I'm not perfect.

Yes, sadly it's true that most of my peers are always in and out of relationships. I'd never mistake these relationships for real love if I knew anything about the details, and I know that these aren't true romances, but I feel as if I'm less desirable than anyone else just because I've never had any of this happen to me and can't help but feel like there's something wrong with me.

Anyway, thank you for pointing these things out to me. I try to be as rational a person as possible and I want to work on correcting these faults.

Do you have any other advice for me?

You're not alone in feeling that way.

You kind of remind me of a female version of myself.

I'm obsessed with love. If I don't get the woman I'm in love with's attention I either spend most my time thinking about her or if I think she doesn't like me or rejects me I feel depressed.

Maybe it's just me but I don't think I can ever change. If I try to do volunteering, join social groups, go to college, all the normal things people do, I don't ever feel I can fit in with people. So I fantasize about love because it's the one escape from the harsh world around me.

I think I'll probably end up killing myself. I keep falling in love with women who are beautiful. I never want the ordinary ones. It would be fine if I was successful with a good job or socially popular... but I'm not. I think I don't have what I need to attract the women I like. I think you're in a similar position. You want the handsome men who are really nice and popular but don't quite have the social status for them to notice you.

It's like an illness. I can't control it. The only thing that makes me stop loving a woman sometimes is moving hundreds of miles away. Even then it can take 2-3 weeks and it involves falling in love with ANOTHER woman.

I feel like either eventually a woman I love will accept me and be my close friend to give me support, even if not my girlfriend, so I can stay sane... or I'll live on the road moving town to town as a homeless person just so I don't become too intense with a woman anywhere and get charged with stalking... or I'll just kill myself. Or I'll end up in a mental hospital for a long time. Or who knows what but I'm scared of the future anyway.

You sound like you are young, if this is indeed true. Just remember you have your whole life ahead of you.

I can relate to worrying about ending up alone and I also sometimes have a tendency to become too fixated guys I like. If you like someone in the future though it's not a good idea to come on very strong because it can be a turn off. There were some guys who would be really forward me and even though I was really lonely it made me uneasy when they would try so hard. It makes it seem like they just want to be with someone and don't actually like me. It could also make them seem deceptive and fake.

If you try online dating just make sure that you're always in a public place when you first meet someone.

TwinkleQueen I don't think you're being selfish. You want to have a relationship and there's nothing wrong with that. Of course you need to get some things in your life that you want for yourself.

You can't live your whole life being 100% selfless and only doing things for other people's benefit. Sometimes you have to get something for you because you want it. There's nothing wrong with that.