I'm 19 years old and I have never had a boyfriend. I'm not sure why because I see girls who are less pretty than me with boyfriends. I've never even had that close of a guy friend either. Am I giving off some kind of stay away from me vibe?

Meesha: thanks for the additional detail, that makes the Answerbagger's lives easier.

Fear of rejection is something we're all familiar with. No matter how attractive a person is, there's a huge difference between attracting the opposite sex and being able to "be with" the opposite sex. To be able to be yourself with all the hormones and emotions of romance lighting up is a challenge for anyone.

Relating to other people naturally is a matter of being able to be OK with whatever is going on inside yourself, without having to spend a lot of energy hiding that from others. Anxiety, nervousness, concerns about being liked -- these are all a normal part of being human. There is really no good reason to try to make them go away: you can just bring them to the party with you!

The trouble is that we try to get rid of these feelings or hide them, and in order to do that we have to withdraw into our shell like turtles. The moment we do that, we feel cut off and isolated from others -- no longer able to respond spontaneously, no longer able to listen, no longer able to share ourselves. In order to be yourself with another person, you have to be willing to be *nervous* with another person, even if it means they know it that you're nervous. This is what the word "trust" means in your situation.

Now in practice, once you start being willing stop hiding your anxiety, it starts to settle down. As your mind relaxes and realizes that its OK to be nervous, the nervousness starts to dies down. It turns out that all the effort to resist being afraid is the exact thing that's driving the fear.

When a person really understands this intuitively, they're home free -- they can be themselves with someone of the opposite sex without having to hide out. Love can then arise very naturally when the right person shows up in that openness.