Love?

I've been thinking about this for some time. For over a year, now, actually.

How can you actually tell if you like someone else?

It's pretty hard for me to know, myself. There are two reasons why, I'm sure. Maybe more. One, I'm such a nice person that I don't hate anyone else. People don't make me angry, they annoy me, and people don't annoy me - they amuse me. I'm too good-natured, at times. My friends have remarked upon it time and again. But I don't mind, really. That way, I don't have enemies. Everyone likes me . . . I think. And two, I'm so easily persuaded. Others might call that too ready to please, or too gullible, or too featherheaded to know myself. But that isn't really it. I change so easily, I'm so adaptable. I'm too ready to trust, and yet too stinting in my trust. I might come to "like" a guy, but then my friend will make a comment about him, and I suddenly see another side of him that I don't like. If I spend a lot time with someone, I tend to mirror their habits. This happens quite quickly, too, which annoys me. I'm not myself, I'm everyone else. If I read one kind of poetry over a period of time, I start to write like that, unconsciously.

So how can I know if I really do like a guy? In my mind, I have this never-ending pro-con list. Sometimes one side is heavier, other times it's not. So, at some times I like the guy, and at others, he can't do a damn thing right.

Like I've said: annoying. So, others don't bother me so much, but I bother myself. Evens things out, in any case. *rolls eyes, shakes head, sighs heavily*

I feel sorry for any guys who like me, if there are any. I've never admitted this, except to a couple of my best and most long-standing friends, but I've never been intimate with anyone. I had a boyfriend when I was fifteen, (and he was twenty going on twenty-one), for about four or five months. However, the most we really did was hold hands. He kissed me good night once, and I was going to lean in to kiss him, but since I was so nervous my head jerked, and he sort of missed. It was so embarrassing, because then all he did was kiss my forehead and tell me good night. Mortifying.

So I've never been kissed, and rarely been hugged or held. People are always telling me, I'm so beautiful, so smart, so great. I don't honestly believe them. I mean yes, I have moments of vanity in my bedroom where I think I'm not so bad after all. But I haven't been asked out since I was fifteen, and over the last six years, I've only been asked out by about six or seven guys. What on earth am I to believe? That I, at 5'6'' - 5'7'', am intimidating?

It doesn't make any sense. Yet I crave that intimacy, that feeling of contentment. I probably want it more simply for the fact that I've never experienced it. I'll be moving in less than a year, will I have to wait until after then? Have I passed up any opportunities because I know that, or because I'm still too afraid to trust anyone?