Yup, you do come across like that.
Ever heard about the inner critic, or, corresponding to that, the outer critic?
There is some great work on that (and how to deal with it) by Pete Walker, and a lot of it is freely accessible on his website, like this article:

http://pete-walker.com/pdf/ShrinkingOuterCritic.pdf

Just the abstract:
“This article describes childhood trauma’s role in creating an intimacy-destroying, toxic outer critic – a counterpart of the self esteem-destroying inner critic described in my article: “Shrinking the Inner Critic in Complex PTSD”. The outer critic projects onto others the same processes of perfectionism and endangerment that the inner critic uses against the self. It perseverates about the unworthiness [imperfection] and treacherousness [dangerousness] of others to avoid emotional investment in relationships for fear they will replicate early parental betrayals.
The outer critic builds fortresses of isolation whose walls are enumerations of the exaggerated shortcomings and potential treacheries of others. In an awful irony, the critic attempts to protect us from abandonment by scaring us further into it…”

Might wanna look into that.

Xenopus,

I sense a lot of pain within you – work has given meaning to things, helped you cope and escape but has it really healed things for you? Your view about the world is skewed from the start thanks to negative experiences, your mind is suspicious of others – if they are spontaneous and even if they aren’t. The world you see more than half of your day is one where the most messed up people come and it just gives you reinforcement for what you already hold true anyway. Part of you wants to break free and yet you don’t because you have never seen the gentler, emotional side of things – unconditional love at its best. I wonder if you think it actually exists?

I know i might be sounding like one of those dreamer types but i do have one question to ask you – are you really happy or even peaceful from inside? Everyone has their own demons but have you really dealt with yours?

Endless work, critique, a negative view-point, warrior-like stances – all very useful in the profession but are they the entire story in your life? Have you wondered why you can’t sleep peacefully still? Where do you want your life to be 10 years from now non-professionally?

Ask yourself these questions sometimes.

Regards,
Nina

Dear XenopusTex:

Your objective is to get married in the coming few years. Plan the way to achieve this objective- the ways to not achieve it when you meet women you find interest in are:

1. Ignore a woman, not asking for her phone number, not attending to a woman (similar to not starting your posts here with a name of the person you are writing to as well as not attending to the content of what a respondent wrote to you).

2. Be late to a date (as you have been): don’t commit to a date when there is a reasonable chance of courthouse proceedings spilling over expected times.
3. Get caught up in the woman’s minor “faults” (too short was one you mentioned before)
4. Give up too soon (seeing a woman having lunch with another man)

anita

XenopusTex: then make a date with a woman for a time when the courthouse is closed.
anita