Did you know that the fear of falling is one of the most common fears in America?

Maybe this is the reason why they call it falling in love, because the idea of falling in love is honestly one of my top 10 greatest fears and why I think "I love you" might be the three scariest words in the English dictionary. This is said with good reason, because so far my dating history has resembled more of a cycle than a timeline. The story usually goes like this: boy meets girl, girl meets boy. Boy and girl start dating, girl develops feelings, boy bails. Cycle repeats again. It is because of this never-ending cycle that it's understandable that I would be a little stand-offish.

But it's not just the fear of falling in love, it's the fear of falling and not having anyone to catch me.

Commitment means being totally and completely vulnerable. It means not only placing your trust in one person, but also giving that one person your whole heart and asking them to please not break it. In today's time, half of all marriages are ending in divorce. This means that time and time again I have seen couple after couple fall apart. I've also seen all of the time and effort it takes to pick up all of the pieces that are now shattered on the floor. After the tenth time of gluing the pieces back together, you start to wonder if it would just be easier to lock it away. It's like when a vase breaks and you glue the broken pieces back together. When you are looking at it from afar it looks like just another vase. It's only when you get really close to it that you can see all of the cracks and the damage it has, because fixing it doesn't mean it was never broken...it just means it's trying to forget it was broken.

Relationships are a gamble, and I've never been very lucky.

My fear of commitment is the result of a relationship that left me damaged and broken, and I know it's not fair to punish people for my ex's mistakes...but that relationship changed me. It made me second guess not only myself, but also every person who has tried to peel away a layer of armor since then. Now sitting here almost 2 years later, I realize how much of an impact it had on me. I now find myself constantly looking for flaws that could give me an easy out, or using little disagreements that aren't even important as another excuse to move on before it goes to far...before I feel myself wanting it to go too far.

With all of this being said, I would like to find love again...but it's not that simple. It would be easy if there was a special map that you could follow and let it lead you to your perfect match, but there is no map. There is no X marking the spot or marking the guy, and there is no treasure buried below. All I have is me, myself, my baggage, and my hope that maybe there is some truth to the 1 million romantic comedies we've all watched. All I have is the hope that maybe this time will be different. All I have is my hope that maybe the next guy will be different, and that maybe this time there will be a happy ending...

But for now, my story is to be continued.