Hmmmm, that sounds like me about a year to 6 month ago. I have felt the same way, as all my friends were getting engaged recently, and I couldn't seem to hold on to a relationship. But even still I focused on what I wanted in life. I knew my personality, and made friends with someone here, very similar to me. You could say I stopped looking, but in reality I never did, I knew what I wanted, and what was optimal for me, but in the end, that isn't what mattered. I am up for hard things. So here I am, happy so much it surprises me every day. My un-optimal friend, who at that time, I never thought would be the kind of person I would want to be with turned out to be someone who gives me more joy than I could ever expect. To me, it comes down to knowing what you are looking for with this, and expanding your horizon. People are scary to talk to, I don't know why, Heck I work in customer service, but even still, I don't seek to initiate interactions. So to talk to someone new, ehhh, not unless I need to for some reason. But here, on MO it is a great opportunity, make friends, talk straight with people, learn. Experience will be your friend, getting it is hard but every piece helps. And don't force things, my theme today seems to be "patience, understanding, love" also trust, but that can get finicky sometimes with certain people. If you want to ask me anything feel free. I know there are a few of us here you will always find that we will try to give our best advice we can. I can not tell you how it will be for your relationship, I cannot give you a silver bullet, but perhaps there just isn't one. There is no one right or wrong way to do things, so make mistakes, people are pretty forgiving, with every mistake, a lesson learned. Learn it and move forward. It is easy to say "there is plenty of time" but when I was in my mode like that, there was not enough time. But I learned to take a step back, stop trying to force pieces together, and let them fall how they may. That was a scary step, I don't want to give up control so easily, but it allowed me to see how I had no right trying to control things in the first place. So live it however you want. It is your life, and every experience is yours. Make it one that you enjoy. Because for me now, being involved in the least optimal relationship I could have imagined, I am happy, because it showed me to never try to force things, allow them to happen, every experience I have, all the stress, pain, joy, happiness, depression, love, sadness, loneliness, everything that happens, is a part of me, and I never know how it will turn out next. This is the most exhilarating life I could want right now. It is simple, and fantastic, and mine. Errrrr, that went way longer than I had planned. hahaha all well. For those of you who stick around and read all my messages, I am sorry, I do not tend to write small things, I have too much in my head I want to share I guess. But thank you, it is like staying to watch all the credits at the end of a movie, it shows a great level of respect. And for that I have a great level of respect for you as well.

AIGHT! Let me strech out a bit for this one! Errrrghh, mmmmmmm, Ok lets begin. A quick how to handle long distance relationships. No idea if this will help in the future. Being apart sucks, yep, it's true. (true story bro) But I seem to be king of these things. hahaha perhaps I am a sad sap for it. But I don't mind. So, I am currently involved in a long distance relationship with someone, thousands of miles away, in a totally different country, with a 6 hour time difference. And recently we have both been busy, so busy in fact, I think we were able to send a total of two, YES TWO, messages to each other today. We try to at least say good morning/good afternoon. But sometimes that's all we can manage. But with our live each so busy, it happens. We understand it. We trust each other. If we need to say things we say them. We are each considerate and thoughtful of the other. We have laid boundaries of things we do not want to do yet and we are cool about it. We have skyped and think it is funny how we are such idiots sometimes. but it is fun. We each have goals we are working toward, and each wants to be able to meet and spend time with the other. It is lightly expensive to do, as it is about a $3000 trip there and back. Along with very little free time, does not afford the ability to do such things so easily. So we will work toward it till we can. Also did I ever tell you about the "patience, understanding, love" idea I have? Those three things are incredibly important. Have patience and wait, understand her and her circumstances, and love her no matter what. You are both young yet so this is not something I expect you to understand. Also learning good communication will help. On both parts. I hope this can help. I hope it works out. If I need to share more of my random ideas and experiences, let me know. I am interested to help where I can.

Ok that's is pretty funny imaging that scenario but it's stories like these that you can share with people since it happens even to the best of us lol

I support that shut in advice, the best friends you can make are usually animated or apprentices in game. Because you can always kill them when they fuck up or get in your way and replace them with another accomplice. You could also make new friends o.o, I mean that's a choice, but who needs real people and their opinions?

I try to help out where I can on the basis that I would want someone to do the same for me. That being said I do not want to be peoples doormat, so I am not afraid to refuse to help someone if needed.