All You Had to Do Was Not Mess Up

This has been a complicated couple of weeks compounded in to this last few surreal days. 

I fell hard for a guy I met online. Which was an asinine thing to do, but I don't think I realized just how lonely I'd let myself become. You spend years walking alone, and then someone shows up who makes you feel hope when you'd forgotten entirely what that feels like...it's difficult not to fall. Suddenly I was interesting to someone who was smart and kind and polite and funny. I'd forgotten what it was like to feel wanted and desired. 

So I let myself start to believe that maybe maybe this was going to be different. This guy would stick around maybe. He wouldn't decide to date my roommate or marry the first girl who would sleep with him or decide I was just a little sister or his best friend or that he was gay or cheat on me. No. Not this guy. He was actually going to be an actual human man with a functioning heart and morals. 

Hahaha

But it wasn't to be. Instead, he turns out to be some creep impersonating some other guy on the Internet. I've spent more time crying in the past couple days than I've done in years. I hate crying. I hate feeling like I'm an idiot because I let myself hope for something. I hate that I'm making people who love me worry because suddenly they're seeing how broken I am because this exposed all the cracks in me. I hate that this wasn't real. 

Just once I'd love to see what the real thing is like. To get a chance a relationship like my folks have or my brother and sister-in-law have or like my friends have. But then I immediately feel like a jerk for selfishly wanting something so badly. 

I'm tired of wanting something I can't ever seem to have. I'm tired of feeling hollowed out and then not being able to express myself without everyone always worrying. I don't like feeling like a burden or a chore or a challenge or a worry. 

I am so blessed by the love and friendship of so many, so why am I so selfish and feel like it's not enough? What's wrong with me? Why can't I just shut off that desire? 

Why?