I want a relationship so bad...I can't stand it - My Love Addiction

As with most of my threads, I don't expect too much from it other than a venting outlet, so excuse me if this contains information you have heard before.

I want to get off my chest this intense longing that I have to be in love. I don't know why it plagues me to such a degree but it has been with me from as early on as I can remember (as a child). I remember the first crush I had on a boy at my school (actually, John Ritter was the first crush I ever had on a male, in general). It was so intense that I couldn't take it anymore, so I told my cousin who was the same age as myself (around 5). I basically came out as gay, to my cousin, before I even knew what it was. How I wish things were simple now as they were back then. I could have never anticipated the many stages of identity confusion and self developement that would come years down the road.

But one thing that has never wavered is my undying thirst for a male companion. Ironically, I have never had a boyfriend...or a girlfriend. I've never been in a relationship.

I have been so sheltered that I'm behind 99% of my peers in many things. I'm 29y/o and have never been behind the wheel of a vehicle. Needless to say, I don't have a license. I can't tell you where my south is from my north, or the east is from the west (literally). I'm really just now learning my times tables on my own. Many of the fundamentals I don't know, so I lack a lot of common sense. I know how to appear normal and carry on a coversation with the best of them, but it is mainly the behavior I have picked up from others. I think that if people really knew who I was, they might run from me... then I would really be alone. This is just the interaction I have with the general population, so I know that I am not ready for a relationship.

This is not to place blame on anyone or get sympathy, because there are millions of people who are 100 times worse off than me. Some people are shaking in the freezing cold right now because they don't have a house or a bed to sleep in. Someone is dying of starvation right now. Someone is suffering in prison...or on death row. Someone is tormented with regrets of the past. This is all the more reason I think I'm selfish for considering the loneliness I am experiencing as a tragedy. I should not be thinking of myself, but others, is what I often hear. Well this is easier said than done, because I can't help the way I feel about love.

I actually became addicted to psychics for this very reason. It was about 3 years ago when I started experimenting with psychic readings. I wanted to know the true thoughts and feelings of someone I was infatuated with at the time. It then turned into a constant pattern. I felt that it was a breath of fresh air that there was now hope for me, because I could finally know if I was going to find that "one." That one eventually turned into a hundred or so, as I became infatuated with guy after guy. And I was always told that he was "coming" in a certain month, at a certain place, or in a certain form, and it was always someone or something different. He never came. It has been promised to me time and time again that I would experience a romantic relationship. Well, what happens when I fall in love with 50 out of 100 guys?, every other guy I see? It got to the point where I would only talk to certain guys in order to get their birth dates to give to the next psychic so that he or she could tell me if he was the one. I was so tempted to do it again today, but I caught myself in time.

Now, I'm sitting here thinking about the thousands of dollars of debt I've gotten myself into over the years, all over romantic infatuation and a preoccupation with "hope." I've talked to hundreds of psychics hundreds of times, and I'm no further along than I was 3 years ago...still going around in the same circles. So I'm left to either continue the cycle or get to the root of the issue. Why am I so hungry for a relationship but still haven't gotten one? If I really wanted to be in love wouldn't I already have been by now?

Is it simply "lust" that is driving me?

In any case, I'm tired of the loneliness. And I know that people say "love yourself first." I have heard that time and time again. But who's to say that I don't already love myself and just want to share it? Still, whether I have self love/esteem or not, loving me is not the same as loving another person who's eyes, hair, skin, bone structure, body, and personality literally make my heartrate eccelerate, cause waves and shivers of electricity to flow throughout my body, and cause me to become lightheaded at the meer sight of him. It is not the same! And self love cannot substitute for it.

All I have to say is I don't know what to do! It's just so frustrating!