It All Comes Down To Convincing Myself

Comment from Robin:   "I can't tell you how many times I have seen you talk in your blog about holding people at arms length; however, this is the first time I have ever seen you actually state, "I will never let it happen any way." I would love to see you go a step further, and share why".

The other day, I wrote a post talking about relationships (Juggling Life), and Robin posted a very good question (above)... why won't I let a relationship happen... of which there are a number of reasons:

1.  I have a long history of relationships, one after another spanning 3-5 years, from the night of my 21st birthday up until 3 years ago, so my openness to love was much greater and more trusting back then.  I think that I believed in love back then.
2.  I am a much different person than I was then.  I'm much more guarded, jaded and enjoy my solitude now.  I think I view a relationship as threatening to my alone time.
3.  I have gone through much more in my life since then and have come to realize that I don't need someone like I thought I did.  I endured a lot of pain which changed me.
4.  I have done a lot in the name of a relationship in the past that got me nowhere but broke, broken and broke-down. 
5.  The world has changed.  Finding someone who wants a committed relationship these days is difficult, thanks mostly to the internet.
6.  With my Dad living with me, I have made a committment to him.  Because of that, I don't know what my idea of a relationship looks like any more.
7.  I still have partial feelings for Jesse that will probably never go away, or at the very least, will make me compare our connection with any new situation.
8.  Having the blog exposes me and gives the other person insight to who I am before I even get a chance to see if I like them.
9.  I have become attracted to the look of an younger guy, but want the life experience of the older guy, but he's too busy looking at the younger guy as well.
10.  With many friends in bad relationships, I simply won't settle just to be in a relationship or in love.

With all the reasons I gave, one that would be more common would be not wanting to be hurt.  I really don't have that fear.  As conceited as it may wind up sounding, I have never experienced anything like it other than the simplicity of a schoolgirl crush that went unnoticed or unresponded.  While I still see myself as the awkward, ugly unpopular teen (spending most of my time trying to put myself out there forcing people to like me for who I am), people don't see me like I do.  Unfortunately, no matter what compliment, whether about how I look or who I am, I don't believe it.  Maybe because my identity, like old people with ailments that they become, is the broken kid who was sexually harrassed, adopted, gay, blah blah blah... because that's all I know how to portray.  As a result, maybe I further become that person every day and it influences my life more than I'd like to acknowledge.

Maybe I go after more landscaping work because there's a good chance I'm good at it.  Maybe I work out and accept my body as healthy and fit.  Maybe I move forward from the things that made me who I am, but not make them the only thing that I am about.  Mabye I accept success and not sabbotage every situation as a fail-safe mechanism.  Maybe I accept success as my new identity.