Posting in case someone has any advice/experiences the same type of anxiety in relationships.

I’m a 32 year old woman with the desire to fall in love and settle down and potentially have children one day.  I’ve always put my career first, and tried (and mostly succeeded) being happy single, but there’s always been a part of me that wants that passionate, intense, overwhelming love that Western culture celebrates.  I’ve tried to rid myself of my romantic ideals and notions, but they’ve persisted nonetheless.  Maybe I read too many romance books growing up, lol.

My problem is, that even though I’ve been in multiple relationships and have had multiple flings over the years, I can’t seem to find a balance between a healthy, stable relationship and a passionate, romantic one.  Instead, I’ll either spend months (or years) in a relationship with someone who is “safe” but I’m not really in love with, or I’ll go on a few dates with the wild, exciting type, berate myself for being attracted to him, and call things off, but then spend a lot of time afterwards obsessing over him and wondering if I made the right decision.  It’s become a pretty prominent pattern in my love life to the point that it’s almost a cliche….I’m that girl that always attracted to the wrong type of guy.  The guy who is scared to be emotionally vulnerable and never wants anything serious.  Even though I know this, the problem is that no amount of self-awareness and reflection and therapy seems to be leading to any changes in my behaviour and dating choices.

Recently, I’ve been seeing someone who I’ve been very attracted and interested in.  We’ve only hung out a handful of times, but I’m already finding myself obsessing over him–thinking about him incessantly, replaying our encounters in my mind, glued to my phone in the hopes that he’ll text.  And I HATE it.  I hate that a simple crush has this ability to turn me into this lovesick school girl.  I hate that my life is so unexciting that a couple of texts or some silly meme from him makes me jittery like a child on Christmas morning.  I hate that everything reminds me of him–even though I barely know him.  And I hate that he seems exactly like the type of guy that doesn’t really want anything serious with me….if anything, he just seems mostly interested in having a physical relationship.  Nothing more.

Unfortunately I’ve had plenty of experience with this type of guy, and my usual response is to run far, far away.  This time, instead of running, about a month ago,  I calmly told him  over text that I felt that he wasn’t that interested, since he wasn’t initiating conversation often and had cancelled a date we were supposed to go on.  He responded that he was sorry that he gave that it came off that way, but he understood where I was coming from.  Neither of us ended things per se (there was nothing to really “end”) but we both understood our conversation to mean that we would no longer communicate.  I was really disappointed because I was already very much into him but decided it was probably for the best.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I heard from him out of the blue.  One of those texts that guys send late at night when they’re drinking.  He apologised and said he would try harder and that he wanted to see me again.  And because I had been drinking too–and was really excited to hear from him–I responded.  We met up that very night, and it’s like the crush came back ten-fold–i find myself obsessing over him, wanting to know more about him, thinking about the next time we’ll see each other.  The thing is that things seem back to how they were before—him not really communicating much, not asking many questions about me, not making concrete plans to see me again.  And even though my usual response is to end things, i find myself unable to end things this time.  i find myself wanting let things play out, even though I’m bound to get hurt.  I’m just so tired of letting fear and anxiety get the best of me; I’m tired of being scared of ambiguity.  It’s like there’s this part of me that craves, needs certainty, and my Higher Self–if such a thing exists–wants me to wade in the ambiguity a little bit.  Even though I’m bound to flail and drown eventually.

Does anyone have tips on how to deal with this intense anxiety when it comes to budding relationships?  I’m still convinced the right thing to do is just to block him, but there’s a part of me that won’t let me this time.  And I’m not quite sure why.