Just Another Cliché

A deeper look into myself requires looking in the past

The loneliness I feel is unwavering. It's as if I was built to be lonely and alone. Isolated by everyone around me, except they have no idea. No one knows how my confidence is an act so I can fool myself into thinking that things will be okay. That I'll find someone to love me unconditionally.
And I look for it in the men I choose. But I choose the wrong man. Every time. Willing to give myself up without a title, in hopes he will see the high price of my offering and reciprocate. I bend my rules and break my walls time and time again, just to be accepted. But acceptance never ensues. Just push back. My false confidence is seen as arrogance and entitlement. Nothing I say can undue the misperceptions.
He now thinks I'm calculating. If only he knew. If only they all knew that all I wanted was to be loved.
Swallowing my pride and telling myself that this is all a cry for help because of repressed daddy issues, makes me want to break the mirror. I have become a cliché and a statistic. He left, so they all will. This has consumed my life.
I can't contribute anything to the world, because I'm too busy trying to make a man love me. Just so the world can prove to me that I can be loved. That I'm worth it to someone. But the truth is, if you're not worth it to the man that made you, how can you be worth it to any man? How can you be worth it to yourself? To myself...
So I self-sabotage. Stay stagnant and hope to grab onto a moving body so they can save me from sinking.
I finally realize that I am my problem.
Too busy trying to fit into another person's life, because I'm afraid.
Afraid of being useless. Afraid that everyone I know and care about will reach nirvana, while I sit alone still trying to figure out why I haven't.
So here I am. Fighting back tears and swallowing huge balls of air, while trying to maintain honesty. I am scared of so many things, but really I guess I should be afraid of myself. I will be the reason I don't succeed. And it hurts most because the part of me that wants to prevail and be happy, has no idea how to achieve it.
I'm not playing dumb. People say I'm smart and I should know better. But this time I really don't and that is terrifying.