Emotionally Atrophied

I've sat down four times today to try and write this, and I stared at the abyss and the abyss stared back at me. I really don't feel like writing about my love life or lack thereof. But I suppose I could try. I believe I mentioned in an earlier post about my shyness, I think it was the one about self-publishing, regardless; I grew up from the little shy boy into a tall shy man. I never dated in high school. I had crush on this girl in the fifth grade, and I only worked up the nerve to ask her out in eleventh grade. I'm not sure why it is so hard for me to talk to women. I guess I don't feel comfortable in my own skin. It took me several months of being friends with my ex-wife before I finally asked her out. After my divorce I dated sporadically, nothing really lasting longer than a year or so. So here I am in my thirties trying to do the dating I should've done in my teens and twenties. But I'm still that shy little boy in a grownups body. But I try to learn from my mistakes. I've encouraged my kids to date in their teens. My daughter has taken quicker to it than my son, but that's because he's a big softy like me. I also encourage my kids to wait until they are in thier late twenties or early thirties before having children. So many teens and twenty-somethings are having kids not realizing how much thier lives are going to change for the next eighteen years or longer. How many people want to get divorced? Not many, but they do, sometimes multiple times. How many people want a marriage like thier parents? Not many want that either, but they do. I would've thought by now that I would've had the typical American family, found someone and remarried, but no. Now I have this overwhelmingly irrational fear that I am going to grow old and alone like my mother, eventually to die alone as she did. Isn't that just about the saddest thing you've ever heard. Then again some people enjoy being alone, but I am not one of them.