I am afraid of loving people because I don’t know how to

I have a problem with love.

I have this thing where whenever I meet a girl, become friends and I start noticing things about her that I like.

I immediately like her more than a friend. I throw all that affection I have in her direction.  I become attached too quickly and I start to develop a crush on this particular girl. Chances are, if you are a girl, my friend and reading this you probably are that girl.

For years I never knew where it came from and why it happens. In fact I wasn’t even aware of it. I never knew I had a problem.

It was when I turned 20 that I realised that it is indeed a problem.  I figured out where it came from. I have 7 sisters; all of them older than me.

All of them did not live with my mom and I so only really knew of them. She went to go live with my grandmother, so it ended up just being just mom and me.

My mother got married to a guy when I was 8 and he has been my step father for 12 years now. When I was still a kid both of them used to work so there was no one at home by the time I got back from school. For years I was alone. I had friends but no real friends. All but one, her name is Shandré. We are still friends, we have been for 16 years (she keeps making me say it to people we introduce each other to just to see the look on their faces).

I had the slightest crush on her when I was younger but that’s gone now. She was the only girl I really loved. I didn’t love my family as much as I love her. We moved one day and we didn’t see or speak to each other 8 years all because of a misunderstanding. We are good now. We have been for 3 years.

However, I digress. I was alone for a very long time. No sisters to bug or talk to after school. I got used to the feeling of being alone and figured out ways how to entertain myself. I wouldn’t go along on family outings because I didn’t really have much in common with my cousins, never mind the language barrier. They spoke Xhosa and I didn’t I didn’t grow that way. The TV was my best friend. That’s where I learned my English.

So when school and puberty happened I met girls but I never knew how to talk to them and all that kind of stuff. I had no one to talk to about those kinds of things. My mom never had the time and my step-father wasn’t the talking type. Fast forward a few years to college and I learned a few things along the way but that still wasn’t enough. What I had learned, was not the right way to go about it though.

I became what my friends call a male slut or just a regular guy. I was hooking up with girls left and right and being unable to hold a proper relationship. After college happened I discovered that I don’t know how to love, at all. It was never really shown to me and I didn’t know how to reciprocate the feeling.   

One day I came to the conclusion that I have a lot of love to give but I never knew and still don’t know how to give it. So much so that I am afraid of loving people because I don’t know how. To afraid that I might just screw it up. I still suck at dating and getting the girl. Ladies and gentleman that is my problem I have with love. I don’t know how. Someone for heaven’s sake please show me how.