Hi everyone!

I’m posting here to create discussion about this topic some of you have very likely been through at some point of your lives. My question and dilemma is revolving around the topic of not being able to fall in love with another person. I’m interested to ponder what might be the underlying forces in my subconscious that prevent me from falling in love.

I am a man, just about to turn 31 years old and I’ve seen the up and downsides of life. In my younger years (21-26yo) I have been in a relationship and shared a home with a woman that I felt I deeply loved. Our relationship ended and unfortunately I was the one who got dumped. After that I have been in multiple long-term relationships with women but something has always been missing, hence I have been the one ending the relationships for one reason or another. There has not been any drama as I connect well with people and always share my own thoughts and feelings about myself to the person I am dating.

Today I feel stronger than ever both physically and mentally. I’ve conquered my life-long depression, dealt with my past issues inside my family, sorted my own sexual insecurities and been to therapy over a year and achieved things that I didn’t consider possible previously. Life is good the way it is, either alone or with somebody. For the first time I’ve started truly to love myself.

I am opening this thread because during the previous weeks I’ve met with a lady few years younger than me and she is really awesome in many ways. She is intelligent, shares same values, is pretty and sporty and is interested in mental development rather than living somebody else’s life through career etc. Genuinely an amazing woman.

But!

Same cycle is repeating again – as in the previous years –  that she is really nice but I just don’t feel “enough”. It’s lovely to spend time with her but I can’t help thinking that there must be somebody “better” waiting (somebody who I subjectively consider more amazing) for me.

I feel like there are few issues that are between me and “love”:

– I’ve started to love myself and my own company so much that romantic relationships feel like something that people do because they are being afraid to be alone and want to fill the void inside them.

– It is impossible to make the right decision to settle down with somebody as nobody is triggering the brain chemistry KABOOM thing in me.

– It seems like a great deal (if no the majority) of people is totally confused, insecure and emotionally juvenile. If I meet a woman, there is always some sort of baggage included and I do not desire to become the therapist.

So people my questions is.

Is it possible to somehow “level up” with your own growth so much that it simply kills the need for romantic long-term relationships?

(disclaimer: when I use the world “level up” I mean it in a subjective way, there is no objective scale for that, obviously and I am only referring to my own experience in the absence of a better world)