I am a 21 year old woman and have been struggling ever since I can remember with the idea of relationships and intimacy. I have never had a real relationship, I don't like to be touched or approached, especially sexually. Any sort of intimacy really repels me. Although I have many friends, I prefer to speak about others, general topics, or anything but myself, my identity, my feelings etc.

I have romantic feelings for others, but it is very distressing and confusing for me because I have opposite desires to bring myself closer to others, and to distance myself as much as possible. I also am not sure if this is true romantic attraction or something else. I almost never feel sexual desire at all. I don't understand it, and mostly understand beauty and attraction in the sense one might understand it in art. I am attracted to qualities of being, and wonder if this is true romantic attraction?

I have been diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder, but it was very hastily- without care (HMOs, ha).

Is this common in any way? I feel a bit insane most days, and definitely apart from others, and it is difficult. The older I get, the more accepting I am of it, but I actually would prefer not to be accepting of it because I think complacency might lead me to stick with a way of living that is lesser than having fulfilling relationships might be. I also get very upset about it sometimes and think if I can't change there isn't much point to living at all. We seem to measure happiness by valuable relationships if nothing else.

I'm not hideous, I seem to have all of the necessary hardware, I'm fairly intelligent, and I'm young and healthy, and yet I can't seem to function on a normal sexual or emotional level.

I've only ever felt a strong attraction to two people in my life, one a female and one a male. I had sex with one person, and it was neither of those two. I was incredibly drunk, and figured I should just do it (let it happen) to join semi-functional humanity. I had no intuition in the matter. He went down on me. It felt nice, but I felt no emotional connection at all, and didn't really have any sense of what to do.

Help?