Am I Even Eligible to Date?

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I am so afraid of relationships. I have been in a few abusive ones and one of my parents was in an abusive one which spread on to me. I would rather not go into details but I am not "stable enough" for any argument. Every time I am in an argument I will break down afterwards and do stuff I regret later on. I would like to have someone to converse with though. I do not care if it is dating or friendship. I want more than 3 friends and I feel lonely from time to time. How do I stop being afraid of getting in an argument? How can I even become more confident?

take an assertiveness course or read about it. learn the rules of fighting fair and stick to them. if you feel yourself getting too upset to be reasonable, say you'll discuss the problem later and excuse yourself.

First of all, yes. Not saying it would be easy, but yes.

Secondly, have you considered/are you going to therapy?

Now, yeah, I understand, at least in part. I am not good at arguments. I will often — and this is somewhat embarrassing for me to admit — burst into tears, not because I feel attacked so much as because I have a lot of trouble dealing with conflict. One particularly egregious example comes from my childhood, when I had friends who'd get into arguments a lot, half-seriously and half-playfully. They'd be fine, but I'd always end up in tears, despite being entirely neutral.

I also get your friendship issues. It takes me a long time to get close to someone. When I was younger I had quite a few friends, but they've moved away over the years both physically (I'm quite isolated) and mentally (one of them, I know, now feels little but vague derision for me). I now have one friend, who lives very far away, and I see maybe once or occasionally twice a month (though I do have a fair few adult friends, I would consider none of them close). So, yeah, I do feel lonely sometimes when I let it get to me.

It's largely down to how you think about things, at least for me, and just trying to bring yourself back down to earth — reminding yourself to remain calm, perhaps focusing on breathing and just keeping your thoughts in order. Also, relationships shouldn't revolve around arguments — I mean, yes, there are always tiffs, but you just have to make clear to whoever you're with that you do have trouble with these things, and if they are a good person they will understand and respect that. There's no need to be embarrassed about it or hide it. And certainly, certainly you should not let fear of arguments get in the way of new relationships.

Confidence is built up over time. Taking yourself out of your comfort zone a little, trying new things — while it's not easy eventually, with time and practice, you should find your confidence grows. Positive thinking is important too — see Wolfheart's post, for example.

Yes, this.

I have an awful temper sometimes and this is exactly what I do. The person ends up hurt and confused, but I explain later that I was really, really angry and wanted to cool off.