Hey X.

First – thanks for the short and long versions. Glad you understood how it will help us.

So, as said upfront, I’m not a therapist or any kind of professional but I can offer a different perspective and where I can draw on my own experience, will do so – though obviously this doesn’t mean it will be right for you, just some data/different way of seeing reality. And as ever, if some questions are too personal for this forum and you don’t want to share, just say so.

Q1.  Do you have any close friends ( male or female ).  You know, the kind you can share anything with even if you haven’t seen them for ages, have proper conversations with, they understand you.  As in, do you expect a romantic relationship to meet all your emotional needs?

Reason I ask – your language about what you are looking for from a romantic relationship doesn’t match up to the pre-selection criteria you are currently using.  So, it’s like going out to a restaurant, assessing the menu, discarding 95% of the options available because they aren’t yellow ( or some other selection criteria ), receiving your banana custard pudding and then finding out it doesn’t fill you up as actually what you needed was lasagne ( or something, you get the idea.. ).

A daft example but I think you’ll get it.  All your language ( hugs, crush, cuddling etc ) about what you want from a romantic relationship is not at all sexual in nature but pretty much all your pre-selection criteria are very chemistry/physically-based.  So it is not too surprising that your approach so far hasn’t resulted in finding what you actually want/need.  If you had to pick your top five things you wanted your long-term partner to be, what would they be in priority order?

Q2.  What goals do you have for life outside finding a romantic relationship?

Reason for this one, how much of a balanced, full life do you have outside of looking for a partner. You do clearly get very over-invested, over-attached very quickly, needing very little to go on to conjure up a whole imagined exciting potential world. Take your current experience, a lot of very small occurrences, all could be as easily explained away as they can be built up into something exciting in your head. I’m not surprised given it will feel exciting after not feeling any interest for a while which is why I’m curious about what else excites you, grabs you attention and makes you feel alive outside a romantic relationship possibility.

Q3.  Relationship with parents. Aware you/Anita started on this one and this isn’t my area so I’ll only ask what I can understand and this is something you might want want to pick up with one of those free online therapy/counselling websites you can find.  Given you were attention-starved in your family life, it is not impossible this is why you tend to look to older men for hugs, attention, recognition that you exist/are important/valued and why one of your criteria is the family portrait assessment.  What is the relationship with your mum & dad like now. Do you feel you are independent of them, is there much contact?

And last one for now Q4 – a slightly personal question, to be ignored if uncomfortable sharing here. Would you say you are comfortable/confident with sex, enjoy it, know how to ask for what you like etc?  From reading through it seems you have limited physical experience, which might go some way to explaining why your pre-selection criteria are highly focused on this area of attraction, since it is the area you know least about so far and hence why it excites you so much more than other criteria.  How were your teenage years, first kiss/fumble etc, did you date much back then at all, even if you don’t count them among your experiences here?

Take care, look forwards to hearing what you think. Long & short version…!