The perception that someone is desperate can be because the person has not been lucky in the past for various reasons other than the person has little to offer. This is the problem, equating initial perception as a prediction of how a person is in a relationship. I know that’s how dating often works, but it’s fucked up. It leaves good guys ignored by women, and cocky bullshitters or at best guys no better than more hesitant guys getting success. Then women complain there are no good guys, but they ignored or friend-zoned them.
I relate to this a lot. I have gone through similar experiences in dating; lots and lots of rejection. And I took it to heart. I am a sensitive person and have taken a lot of things to heart. Especially being abused as a child due to my caretakers not knowing any other way.
Connection is the most deep human need. If you feel like you don't have it and worse, feel like you can't have it, of course you'll be desperate. It makes sense.
I know everyone is trying to help you, but when you are in this state you are very fragile and the words don't really sink in. At least they didn't for me.
I experienced abuse at home and brutal bullying. I did not think the world was built for me. I thought I was fundamentally broken. I needed people to connect with and care about me. It turns out if we are not connected socially in a meaningful way it makes us *more* sensitive to rejection and more likely to perceive the actions of others as malicious, ironically, worsening our own isolation.
You can and will find connection. But it requires you to identify the obstacles keeping you from connecting with others. For me I had built this superiority complex to defend my ego- basically that I was so hard to understand, so unique, so special, that it was hopeless for anybody to be on my level. It turns out that nobody is ever able to understand anyone 100%- which was what I was craving. I had to learn to connect to others on their own level. I had to learn to not be so scared of people rejecting me or not liking me and keep looking. I had to develop resilience.
Again I'm only speaking on my own experiences. But I really really really really feel like I see myself in your words and actions. I totally relate to them. I grew up in a hard life and it really beat me down but I have been able to build myself back up. I had to realize there was nothing fundamentally wrong with me, I had to learn to listen to others and be willing to learn from others. I realized my instincts were often wrong.
One of the BIGGEST lessons which I think applies to your situation that I had to learn, and I can't remember if I already said this or only thought about saying it so forgive me if I already did, but it was: actions speak louder than words.
Because I was abused I have a really hard time telling people who are healthy from people who are not, people who might mistreat me. I had to learn to pay attention to what people do and not what they say. There was a social theory that helped me... Basically that all human relationships are built on "matching" behavior. Matching is, if I initiate a social interaction with somebody, they then reach out and initiate one with me and through returning these exchanges we grow closer.
If at any point a person fails to match the behavior early on in a relationship (including non romantic) it will naturally cause the relationship to not deepen because humans naturally want to match each other's level of interest. If we give to much without receiving in return, it will make the person receiving uncomfortable because it is then unequal. I had been taught to give and give and give because my parents expected me to and they did not reciprocate. This led me to falsely believing that a good relationship was one where I gave and waited for the person to give anything. In real life this doesn't work very well because like I said most people who are healthy want the give and take to be equal. So I would ignored people who were trying to show that they were not interested by not responding because I felt that this was normal (it is not.)
Once I was able to learn these "rules" and pay attention to others' behavior I was able to identify people who were actually interested in connecting with me. I was able to not be too "intense" when meeting people and thereby scaring them off. It is important to only invest in people who show interest right away in investing back in you because we really don't have time to "win people over." You will end up wasting your time on people who are either not able to reciprocate in a healthy way or people who simply don't want to.
Now that I have a lot of social connections, including a romantic one, I realize how hard it is to actually maintain all of these relationships. It takes up a lot of my time and there are people who I connect with who i don't have time to deepen the relationship with them and so our social time is limited. There are people who I wanted to get closer to who we had a connection but because they already had a full social network and life there wasn't really any room in their life for me. I used to take this personally but I've realized people only have time to maintain a certain social network and if it's full, they will not invest deeply in new connections because they already have adequate support.
So there has definitely been an element of learning how to enjoy ALL connection and not need to deepen all connection. I started a gratitude journal too, which I would fully recommend, because it will actually alter the neuropathways in your brain so that you can see things in a new way- they have done scientific studies proving this can happen.
Like focusing on being grateful for the moments of connection you have in everyday life-- like a friendly barista or somebody smiling at me on the street. People are mostly good and have good intentions. Sometimes our past hurts rob us of future joy because we keep believing the past to be a predictor of our future. But it is not. We can't fix what happened to us in the past but we can change how we look at the world and in turn this will change how the world responds to us.
I get that everybody is trying to help you out but either they've forgotten what it feels like to be completely alone and needing connection more than being alive itself, or they never experienced that before. The tough love approach didn't work for me- I only recovered because people gave me the chance to connect and because I wanted to connect more than I wanted to be right.
So try to remember that nobody here wants you to hurt or be lonely. None of us are trying to shame or embarrass you. It is this fierce desire that we all have for your happiness and wellbeing that is making people tell hard truths. We are complete internet strangers but we have big hearts and can see your pain and don't want you to suffer anymore. And you must know that deep down, right?
If you didn't have doubts about your beliefs, you wouldn't be here, and also even if you were here you wouldn't be so impacted emotionally by people doubting you no matter how many people did. So you know that there is something not right. You are not under attack here. We are only giving our own experiences as people who maybe are a little similar to you and walked a path parallel... Trying to tell you what we saw. You don't have to agree. But try to be open. You might find something helpful and if not ... You can leave. But I think there is something good here for you to think about.