Pushing opposite sex away

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I'm not a pretty dude, but a few times in my life girls apparently showed interest in me.
Each time I pushed them away in one way or another.
Be it by outwardly being a detached as*hole basically telling them to piss off or by just not making a move/running away from the situation. As a general rule of thumb I will not make a move even if I like someone a lot.
I'm not even sure how to make a move lol. Maybe I should first be able to have coherent conversation or be interested in people in general LOL. Not knowing what you are doing makes you rather insecure. But that's for another thread.

Every time I feel like they are just talking to me because it's a means to an end to them and they aren't actually interested.
Maybe they just wanted to copy my notes or play me in front of their friends, who knows...

Another thing is that I'm afraid of intimacy. This is from times I was bullied. I didnt often tell anyone of the bullying in detail or showed how bad I felt because I didn't want to appear weak. What I thought was that if the group tastes blood because one memeber managed to expose my weakness, they all will jump me at once. So I always tried to hide my hurt to the best of my ability. With any- and everyone. Nowadays that's changed, but I still don't want to tell anyone that I was bullied as a kid, because they will probably draw the conclusion that I was an outcast and reject me for it.
Also I don't want to appear weak in the sense that I'm nice, because I don't want to be taken advantage of.

Obviously I don't want to let them know that I don't take charge for my life, because girls don't seem to like that.

I also dislike disclosing personal information in general, because that nice friend can always turn into your worst enemy, or worse, already BE your worst enemy in disguise and backstab you badly. I don't fully trust anyone.
I was stolen before so whenever I have people at my place, I watch them closely so they can't steal anything while I'm not looking.

And last but not least, the combination of it all: I don't want a girl to get close to me, notice how broken I am, was bullied in school and am a friendless weakling because of it, who doesn't take charge with anything, then lose respect for me and play me, pretending they love me (or maybe they've been pretending the entire time) to drain me for what they can get, leave me, laugh at my inexperience with anything in life and expose all my secrets to everyone they know...

NOPE, thank you, don't want that. I'd rather beat them with the emotional club when they reach out.

But still, even if these girls weren't up to anything good, in retrospect I wish I wouldn't have pushed them away so harshly, because they were rather nice to me. I feel they didn't deserve to be treated like criminals by me before I even got to know them.
I mean, I'm not dumb, I can tell when someone is using me, but I'm scared that love will cloud my reason.

Anyone have similar feelings or experiences?
Any advice you can give me?

IMHO: Are you at least capable of maintaining friendships with a person of the opposite sex? Because I'd start with that.

It sounds like your biggest problem is just treating people like people. And I don't mean that in a bad way.

Women aren't some strange other species, they're human too.

I understand you have issues trusting others due to bullying, but just know not everyone in the world is out to get you and there really are good, genuine people out there both male and female that would care about you.

I'd like to know: How many friends do you have now? I mean no offense but from the sounds of it, it sounds like you would have very few (can't trust others, lacking interest in other people, etc.).

But, this doesn't mean you should blindly trust people and you don't have to like people you just naturally dislike/hate.

Just find the balance, that's all.

Are you at least capable of maintaining friendships with a person of the opposite sex? Because I'd start with that.
Last and only time I remember having a girl for a friend was my neighbor until I was 13. She was a complete tomboy though. After a disagreement we never reconnected and she doesn't live here anymore. So I have no idea how well I would do.

It sounds like your biggest problem is just treating people like people. And I don't mean that in a bad way.
No, you're right. I have a lot of trouble seeing people as people. Even myself.

I understand you have issues trusting others due to bullying, but just know not everyone in the world is out to get you and there really are good, genuine people out there both male and female that would care about you.
This is true. There have in fact been such nice people, people I liked. I wanted to say something nice, but I didn't. Instead I either said nothing, something weird-unclear, or something hurtful. I'm kinda unsure how to handle people tbh.
It's like I was (and am) on autopilot. In my mind being nice equates to exposing yourself as being a sucker.
I've sporadically been nice to others and got punished for it. So I prefer to be like a brick wall on the outside.
Or sometimes a semi-fake kid persona.

Actually, I'm like a statue. Just today I sat on a bank in the mall almost petrified.
"Ignore the woman next to me, better keep looking at people's shoes, maybe I can find a pattern or something."
Must've been creepy for anyone watching.

How many friends do you have now? I mean no offense but from the sounds of it, it sounds like you would have very few (can't trust others, lacking interest in other people, etc.).
I'm not offended by it. In whatsapp I have two friends But I really only talk to one, every once in a while.
I wonder about my capacity for caring about people in general because I've been covertly depressed since I don't know when. It's difficult to genuinely care about anything when you're depressed. Especially in the long term.

But, this doesn't mean you should blindly trust people and you don't have to like people you just naturally dislike/hate.
Just find the balance, that's all.
Hmm... that's difficult. But I know what you mean.

Thanks for you input man, you got me thinking. I appreciate it a lot.

I bet that Katy will come and give you a lecture on how repulsive you are.

I'm like this. You are not alone. I don't have any advice. It's hard to let people in when you are so afraid.

Yes! This was me when I was teen. Girls would ask me out for a date and I'd get really nervous of the whole "dating" thing and then I'd say something really rude to them.

At the time I wanted a girlfriend in theory but in reality I found the notion overwhelming. I'd be rude to them because it was the only way I knew to make them go away and because I was mad at them for making me feel nervous.

After a while I decided to stop doing this but no more girls asked me out. It never even occurred to me to ask one of them out. At time I thought the only way any boy ever got a girlfriend was by waiting for a girl to ask them out.

I heard a rumour that this other girl liked me. She did but she never asked me out. She was waiting for me to ask her out. There was this other girl, nice, kind, smart, very pretty. She flirted with me all the time in high school and at the time I didn't realise.

She was a childhood friend. She'd been giving me signals since before I was even old enough to feel attracted to girls. She was attracted to me. Well known fact that girls mature faster than boys.

She was certainly persistent. I actually tried to avoid her. I didn't realise she was hitting on me but some of the things she said really confused me and I thought she was still mad at me for this mean thing I accidentally said to her years earlier. She totally wasn't mad at me.

Later in life I figured out what had been going on and regretted it. She was really pretty and thin and kind to me. I suppose just because I'd be able to recognise her flirting now, I shouldn't judge my teenaged self by present day standards. The fact is I didn't have the skills then that I have now.

And later in life when I had trouble getting a date I still regret that girls were actually asking me out and I rejected them. And I was rude to them even though they were being nice to me. I actually insulted them. They weren't happy.

After a few girls had asked me out I assumed that was the way of the world. I didn't realise that no girl would ever ask me out again.

I still get mad. Every day I see couples in high school uniforms, sometimes middle school uniforms, walking hand in hand or heavy petting on the train and feel mad at them because if i hadn't screwed up, that would have been me.

Maybe it's for the best that I didn't have a girlfriend at the time because in those days I was so abrasive to everyone that I would have said something to make them mad even if I wasn't trying to psuh them away. I suspect that's why the girls liked me. They thought I was a bad boy. They would sometimes ask me out after I defied one of the teachers.

I had too much energy and I was rude to everyone. In the last couple of years of high school this changed. I was exhausted. I became depressed and felt exhausted all the time. I gradually started being nicer to people but I realised now I would have to ask girls out instead.

The first time I was at community college there was this girl who liked me but I was far too nervous to ask her out. Somehow I thought if the answer was no she would be very offended at me for having the gual to ask. In truth she was very friendly and even if the answer had been no, she would have let me down gently.

It was years before I could ask a girl out and then only on dating sites. It didn't help that I was near reclusive for some of that time but when I did go to social gatherings, I was too nervous to interact with the girls there. Even today it feels rude to talk to a girl spontaneously. I never ask the girl at work for help. I always ask one of the guys. I feel like if I ask her for help she'll say "why are you asking me and not someone else you stalker". In truth she's just as capable of helping me when I get stuck as anyone else and she probably wouldn't mind.

One time she flirted with me quite strongly and I did my best to ignore her because I was dating someone at the time (it didn't last with the girl I was dating). Now there's this new girl at work who's fitting at me often. She keeps on inviting me to her parties (I don't go), and today she even bought me food. I do my best to ignore her because there's this other girl I got involved with recently. Bad timing.