How do i handle this?!

You can't wrap all your happiness in another person -- it's too much pressure and too much of a burden to put on someone else.

Perhaps you're so excessively attentive that your girlfriends might find you to be a little too suffocating / smothering or too needy for their tastes.

You have to work on being a whole, independent person with interests and activities separate from your girlfriend. You shouldn't need to constantly dote on a woman or make her the absolute center of your life in order to be happy. Everyone and every relationship needs breathing room and adequate space.

the trick isn't to make someone else happy. you need to make yourself happy. if that includes giving flowers and presents, great - but don't go the route of over indulging someone. i've often made the mistake of letting my wishes go by the wayside and then the other person doesn't get what they want. it doesn't seem like you have trouble getting someone interested, so they probably like you for you in the beginning. it's when you try to change and make someone else happy in front of yourself that you take away what they wanted in the first place - you.

it took a failed 3 yr relationship for me to realize this. i've just passed the 3 yr mark with my current (and last) gf. (plans for marriage as soon as economically viable). i'm still working on correcting my natural tendencies to lose myself in trying to make someone else happy and winding up miserable myself which only causes the other person to be miserable because they care. but at least i've seen the problem and am trying to correct it.

maybe not the answer to your problem, but some of the context clues in your post point this way.

The bitter taste of "memories"..........the basis for your fear. And ohhhhh how I know that feeling!

Fear and love....one cannot exist in the presence of the other.

Life can be like a series of tests, ya know. Luckily for us, it's NOT a one chance only exam. :wink: I say don't worry about being hurt. Enjoy the sweet taste of these new feelings you have inside of you for this lovely lady.

You have two choices here, darlin:

1. You can choose to stay mired in the past, and project that fear into the
the future.
OR
2. You can live for this moment. This "moment" is really all any of us
have anyways.

Your fear is based on an "imaginary future". What you fear does not exist at this moment. It is simply a possibility.

Trust your heart and put your mind to rest. Live each day like it was your last.

Debra_Law,
you make some great points about how girls see us guys. But, somehow I can't help think that some girls that broke up with this guy were playing games. If you act like you feel attracted to the girl, she thinks that she is better than you and breaks up. If you act like you don't like her, then she wonders why and tries indefinitely to do whatever it takes to be your girlfriend. It sucks because you neve know wich girls are playing games and wich girls are just being honest.

mr. Bob.
My advice is to not be afraid of being hurt. I know it's corny, but I would rather feel pain and rejection than feeling nothing at all. So that's my advice. Don't ever give up even if you are 90 years old. There is always that chance that you'll find somebody that cares about us guys who are not jerks. More details are needed if we are to decide if you are smothering your girlfriends(becaue that is possible like Debra said).

Maybe your relationships with women were TOO nice and wonderful. Maybe you needed some conflict to mix things up a little. This is sort of predicated on some observations where women like the guys who are jerks, ignore them, etc, and this breeds the thought that "nice guys finish last".

So it seems some women just dont know what they want, and you're sufferring because of that ... i agree with Debra_Law and thorman, work on making yourself happy and pursue yourself as an individual, which is what you can always count on at the end of the day.