I’m afraid to fall in love 😔 (long post, I need help...)

So, I’m a person that when I fall in love with someone, I get extremely emotionally attached. When I say extremely, I literally mean that exact thing. No limit.

I never had a relationship before (I’m 18 btw). However I was talking with a guy a couple of months ago, and I got too attached to him. He was always complementing me, wanted to have long conversations with me, and daily sent me good morning and night texts. He wanted to go out with my but I’ve always answered that I don’t want to. At that specific momentum of my life, I wasn’t ready to meet someone, not only because of how many insecurities I had at that time, but also because I was afraid of the unknown. What if he wasn’t the right for me? What if he doesn’t like me in real life? What if he just wants to take advantage of me to lose his virginity? What if it’s all a joke? What if?

It’s been 2 months, I’ve tried to communicate with him, by sending him ‘hey’ and asking hem how he was. I really got attached, that when he stopped sending me messages, I suddenly fell into a depressing state. Feeling that he doesn’t care anymore about if I’m okay, even as a friend, made me so sad that I started underperforming in life. He became my only thought, both sweet and bitter. All this gave me anxiety. Until now.

It’s been 1 month exactly, we haven’t spoken. And our last talk was 4 texts long, me sending first to see how he was. He clearly is not interested anymore, making me wonder, was I just a toy to him? Would he just use me? Were his feelings for me all fake? All these hours of us talking and talking and talking? Where they all wasted like that? Or did I make him feel ashamed for asking me over and over again to go out with me and I declined all his trials?

I’m writing this post because I just saw a pic of him with a girl at prom. So most probably that’s his prom date and they are together. That broke my heart even though I’ve been trying to forget about him this whole time. Obviously he just wanted a girl. And now he got it. And I’m here, feeling used and broken.

This ended up too long, and I’m not even sure if I managed to show you exactly how I feel. I don’t even know if I’ll get any responses. It’s just that this experience has made me realize how vulnerable I can be. I’m afraid to fall in love again. I’m afraid to meet someone. I don’t want to go through heartbreak again. But at the same time I crave love. I don’t know if there are any tips for this... 😞