Anything good that has or will ever happen to you is hanging by a very thin thread. At any moment, you could die in so many ways, the love of your life could leave you, you could lose all of your wealth, or your internet and cable television could go out yet again because you settled for Comcast. Nothing is for sure except regular urination and death, and even that is not secure if you have something wrong with your bladder or kidneys.

Don’t get too comfortable. I know this and am never comfortable. No matter how good my life seemingly gets, in the back of my mind I know I could lose it all in an instant. Yes, it helps me take nothing for granted, but it also takes up the majority of the hours in the day. Is it worth it? Probably not. Can I help it? I cannot. Will we all eventually die anyway? Yes.

Maybe after a certain amount of time with the love of my life, I will realize she’s not going away. Until then, I will continue to experience constant heart palpitations, back sweats, the inability to speak, and a lot of forehead scratching. Maybe there’s a certain amount of time that G-d’s making me live through before I can experience this. There is only so much more I can take.

I shouldn’t complain, though. Life is good. I have the best girlfriend of all time, a great job, and Tums I haven’t had to use in over a year. I have to lay down, though.

I’m scared of everything. I’m scared I will fail. I’m scared I won’t wake up on time tomorrow. I’m scared that even though I got an oil change last week, the mechanic only pretended to change my oil because I told him I didn’t want the extra $50 thing that he explained I “needed.” but didn’t get because it wasn’t oil.

Fear is what drives people to do great things. It is also what leads people to self-destruct. It has caused me to do both. You can’t live with constant fear (unless you’re that woman who was trapped in that dungeon in the Netherlands… or somebody is chasing you with a buzz saw). If you live in the suburbs, which many of you reading this probably do, there is really nothing to be afraid of, short of death or serious illness of yourself or a loved one. Of course, that is a lot easier said than done. If you lose your job, you will recover. If your car gets stolen, you will recover. If your NFL team loses, there’s always beer. Relationships are somewhat different. I think losing a significant other can really affect your life in the long term.

This is why, outside of maintaining the health of yourself and your loved ones, you should focus a great deal of energy and concern on y0ur partner. If you don’t have one, she/he will come. Okay, I realize this is a completely different topic now… However, I’ve been pretty consistently single for most of my life. For the past ten years, my life has been completely out of control, and everyone always told me that ‘she will come’ very much in the style of Field of Dreams. She did not come until I got my s*** together. You don’t have to actively seek someone out. You just have to get your s*** together.

I realized very recently you don’t increase your odds of meeting someone great by going out on as many dates as possible. You do so by going on a few dates, but putting your all into each one. Don’t make it seem that you go out on one a week, even if you don’t. Get in a mindset where this thing is the only thing you’ve been thinking about for like a week. My dad always told me to get the girl a gift on the first. I never really did that, as it can seem a little much, but the sentiment is certainly there. If you are not sure whether or not you should wear a tie, then you should definitely wear a tie. Let this fear somewhat guide you. If you’re not a little scared, then it’s not going to work out well. If you half-a** it, she will know. And if that happens,you will go home alone — as I almost always did.

There’s that moment when you’re dating when you realize that if you hold on just a little bit longer, it might take off and become something more. Something significant. Something notable. Something to write home about. When this happens, you can’t help but feel inflated with excitement, passion, joy, and if you’re anything like me, a large amount of fear. That’s right. The girl who is the 100hookup blogger, the one who has been going on dates for the last three years, in and out of short relationships, only one of which wound up in a head over heels kind of love, and wants more than anything to  find Mr. Right, is afraid of relationships.

When I got into my last relationship early last winter, I remember falling asleep one night laying next to my ex as he stroked my hair until my eyes finally closed. He kissed me gently before turning over to fall asleep himself, and all I could think was that this was everything I had wished for… and I am scared out of my freaking mind. I knew that from that very moment, I could no longer pull back my feelings or keep my walls up. It was all hanging out. Every piece of who I am was revealed and extremely vulnerable. And if that’s not scary, I honestly don’t know what is. Okay, horror movies are scary. I can’t even watch scary movie trailers without covering my eyes, but that’s a totally different story. But I’ve realized that this fear is the most difficult thing to overcome. You can be a serial dater, or in my case a serial first dater, if you’re always dressed in your suit of armor. No one can hurt you, disrupt your daily routine, or embed themselves in your life when they’re standing at arm’s length.

That’s what happens when you date the way I have, recently had your heart broken, or don’t have much experience in dating at all. You learn to keep your distance as a defense mechanism. You might go to the dance, but that doesn’t mean you will actually dance. It means you’re thinking about dancing. Then when the moment finally comes when someone offers to take your hand and lead you to the dance floor, you have two options. You can say, “It was nice of you to ask, but no thank you.” Or you can let it all go and shut up and dance.

I am completely and utterly convinced that women can sense when a man who is interested in them is lacking in confidence. While some men are naturally better than others when it comes to pursuing and acting confidently around women I honestly believe that every male has the ability to boldly pursue a woman with the utmost poise.

While some men hold the attitude that they are “humanity’s gift to women” I think that for a majority of men we need to feel comfortable in a given situation in order to project the most self-assured version of ourselves. This is not to say that you won’t have success with a woman if on that particular occasion you brought your “B-Game,” but I do think that women can tell when a guy isn’t completely confident in what he’s saying and how he’s acting toward them.

Even though we’ve all seen teeny bopper movies where the stereotypically hot-shallow girl ends up falling for the nerdy socially awkward guy when she discovers his inner charm, this typically isn’t how things work in the dating world. Furthermore, how many times have you (men) heard your female friends say that they are, “looking for a guy with confidence,” or that, “they find confidence sexy”? In the end I may know very, very little about women, but what I do know is that most women are attracted to confident men and can smell fear on those who aren’t.