i won't let you close enough to hurt me

it's not a secret, I've been single a while now. 90% by choice. I've come to realise through a culmination of many different happenings that I have become one of those people who is terrified of commitment. Whenever anything gets even a hint of serious or of wanting to head that way, I bolt.

Relationships are hard. Anything where you're putting at least a portion of your happiness into someone else's hands makes you vulnerable, and I'm not sure I can do that anymore. I can't leave myself that open to getting hurt by someone, or even to hurting someone else. I guess my track record leans more towards me hurting other people, but I'm not a bad person so it still sucked to have to do that. In fact it was bloody awful.

It's so bloody terrifying. I mean, the next person I'm with will either be the person I spend the rest of my life with, or the next breakup. Both of those things make me want to go to bed and hibernate so I don't have to think about it.

I can't be done with relationships, I'm only 25. I have plenty of time to figure this out. It's just real scary right now. And I think that the process of figuring it out will be a combination of me figuring myself out (I've already been doing a lot of that to be honest), and finding someone who is just.... right. Someone I don't want to bolt from, and who doesn't want to bolt from me. I guess that's hard too. A lot of people my age are going through a similar thing; we've all had serious relationships now, and most of us have had our hearts broken or broken a few hearts. It's a difficult thing to figure out when you've been brought up on the ideal that happily ever after is what you're looking for, and that Prince Charming will show up some day. That's not how it works at all.

I guess we're all just trying to work it out, and one day there will be someone worth taking the risk for, someone I'll be okay making myself vulnerable for. And they'll feel the same.