The gist of it is that my parents did not have a very happy marriage and so I associate relationships with stress and fighting and unhappiness.

I did not figure this out on my own but through therapy. I have been single most of my life and I have had a multitude of reasons for my singledom however the one above is pretty much the right one.

I'm in my early 30s now but when I was in my teens, I never thought myself good-looking since I wasn't skinny nor white. When I got to college, I was still not-white but I lost the extra fifteen pounds and I looked pretty good. Also, the person I crushed on, liked me too! But I'm not sure if I didn't see it or didn't want to acknowledge it or did not want to show my cards and give my crush the upper-hand. So ignore away I did. Much-repeated pattern throughout my life.

Then I went to therapy for stress. I am a type-A personality and I suffered a couple of failures in my professional life and started falling apart. I was grinding my teeth, I couldn't sleep, and I just felt really lousy about myself. Anyway, it was in therapy, we dug through all the issues of my non-romantic life in order to handle my overall stress level.

Turns out I've been sabotaging myself. It was easy to blame my looks or my career or whatever for not having a relationship but turns out it's just me. My baseline association for marriage is my parents and they are really not happy. My household growing up was stable (two parents, great schools, etc.) but there was a lot of yelling and screaming. My parents, frankly, don't like each other or trust each other. My father can be very manipulative and my mother is a very disappointed complainer.

Anyway, it's been a few years since therapy and I've had a few nice successes professionally yet I still can't get it together in my romantic life. However, watching my sibling get married and be happy has given me more confidence. She was always an unhappy person when we were growing up but she's so happy now with her husband. They've been married for almost three years now.

Part of me still thinks most marriages are doomed --40% fail and of those who do last, maybe 50% are miserable (or so I've heard) --but I'm willing to at least try to establish a relationship. It's one of my goals for 2015.

I don't want to put too much pressure on myself and it's definitely harder to meet people out of school but I'm planning on trying to just be more open in life and talk to more people when I'm out day-to-day. I'm also trying to concentrate on the positives of being in a relationship such as regular physical intimacy and companionship. I think it's still going to be a bit of time before I can open up emotionally and not always need to be in control but I will work up to it.

*created this throwaway account as I'm an emotionally stunted person and I do not want my personal business in my regular account.