Social anxiety and dating

What you have described here is similar to how I felt throughout much of my twenties and thirties. The difference was that I had experienced love, just that it hadn't turned into the happy-ever-after that my boyfriend and I had anticipated. In some respects, knowing what it was like to love and be 'in love' made it worse. I hated being single and yearned to be in a relationship to the extent that it completely consumed me.

I am now in my late forties and have spent the majority of my adult life as a completely single person. It's not been easy, but I've had to learn how to make the best of things and enjoy my own company. My attitude now is that if I'm fortunate enough to meet someone that I want to date and possibly spend the rest of my life with, then it will be an unexpected bonus. However, if it doesn't happen, then so be it. 

Last year, I attended the wedding of a cousin who is young enough to be my son. In fact, he's just over a year older than my son. Whilst I felt so proud of my cousin and his bride on their wedding day, I also felt envious. As I am the eldest of all my cousins, I couldn't help thinking, "It should be me walking down that aisle!"

Not so long ago, I heard that another one of my cousins had got engaged. Despite feeling happy for her, I again experienced a pang of envy. However, no matter how much I may yearn for a lifelong companion that I feel truly compatible with, I'm determined not to become bitter about it.

Speaking from my own experience, when one is desperate to be in a relationship, one can sometimes give off the wrong signals and appear too needy and desperate. This can sometimes be deeply off-putting to a potential suitor, and a red flag. Alternatively, our desperation can also be considered an invitation by unsavoury types to string us along and mess with our emotions, or worse.

What you have described here is similar to how I felt throughout much of my twenties and thirties. The difference was that I had experienced love, just that it hadn't turned into the happy-ever-after that my boyfriend and I had anticipated. In some respects, knowing what it was like to love and be 'in love' made it worse. I hated being single and yearned to be in a relationship to the extent that it completely consumed me.

I am now in my late forties and have spent the majority of my adult life as a completely single person. It's not been easy, but I've had to learn how to make the best of things and enjoy my own company. My attitude now is that if I'm fortunate enough to meet someone that I want to date and possibly spend the rest of my life with, then it will be an unexpected bonus. However, if it doesn't happen, then so be it. 

Last year, I attended the wedding of a cousin who is young enough to be my son. In fact, he's just over a year older than my son. Whilst I felt so proud of my cousin and his bride on their wedding day, I also felt envious. As I am the eldest of all my cousins, I couldn't help thinking, "It should be me walking down that aisle!"

Not so long ago, I heard that another one of my cousins had got engaged. Despite feeling happy for her, I again experienced a pang of envy. However, no matter how much I may yearn for a lifelong companion that I feel truly compatible with, I'm determined not to become bitter about it.

Speaking from my own experience, when one is desperate to be in a relationship, one can sometimes give off the wrong signals and appear too needy and desperate. This can sometimes be deeply off-putting to a potential suitor, and a red flag. Alternatively, our desperation can also be considered an invitation by unsavoury types to string us along and mess with our emotions, or worse.

Sporadic Sparkly said:

appear too needy and desperate.

The is the most-evil thing about relationships in my eyes, is when people place so many guards-and-wards over that one shallow-wall, I feel that it forces one to get-stuck and be forced to feel-and-appear needy and desperate, when it is possible that one step past that barrier can provoke a most simple-and-natural interaction. 
I had been repressed-and-lamenting for years and years about the prospect-and-meaning of intimacy, how grand it would be, how life-changing, how powerful, how memorable. I never was allowed by others to experience it, or talk about it, or feel it, it was a really-repressive slog. Until one day, a decade past-due in my opinion, someone permitted an unguarded-interaction. 
It was all of those things, but at the same time is was non of them, to me it was as simple as drawing-breath. We then mutually-agreed that we weren’t meant for each other and parted-ways over coffee. What I gained from that interaction was the shedding of the most monumental-and-maddening ball-and-chain.  
All of that suffering caused because everyone assumed that I was needy-and-desperate, which I was, I was just desperate to take the next microscopic-step pass the mm-thick impenetrable-barrier of shallow-judgements. 
I can assume that the same is true for relationships, that the first-breath I take past the guard of another will be same kind of simple-and-uncomplicated; and that the tragedy of nature outside my bubble, will be nothing compared to the evil-and-unnature of being held-inside my bubble, in purgatory. 
The most-crazy thing was that after that occasion, I have never felt-repressed on that point again, I just though ‘okay cool..’ as if I’d been carrying 20 extra-stone all my life and was walking-around feeling light-as-a-feather.
I thought needy-and-desperate ‘my foot!’, I’m the opposite of that, it’s just hard to find a genuine-interaction in this repressive-world..!