everyone is either in a relationship or newly engaged except for me

i'm only 20 years old. yet, as the title says, i've reached that weird time in life when a surprising number of my peers are getting engaged--and even married--despite how young we still are. in fact, my best guy friend just proposed to his 19 year old girlfriend yesterday. i, on the other hand, have been single for nearly three years.

in the past year or so i've had a lot of causal sex and a lot of flings, neither of which ever ended up developing into the kind of serious, committed relationship i hoped they would. because of this, my anxiety and sadness over being single has skyrocketed, and my self-esteem has plummeted. to top it all off, in the same year, i gained about 50 pounds due to a medication, which has only compounded my feelings of worthlessness. but that's a story for another time.

a pretty decent fling of mine ended two months ago, and now my loneliness pretty much rules my life. unfortunately, i am the kind of person who is unhappy without a guy in my life, no matter what the circumstances are. i wish i could turn this part of myself off and focus on my education and my writing, but i can't. there is literally nothing in my life that i want more than a relationship. nothing anyone could ever say would change that about me, and believe me i've heard it all. if this kind of change is even possible for me, it will have to come from myself, and if it ever does, it will come from a place of survival and self-preservation.

it may not seem like very long to most, but two months without someone is so unbelievably long for me. i've been placating myself by having crushes on guys that may or may not even be attainable, but at least it is a distraction from how miserable i am alone. currently, my attention is on a guy from a summer camp i've been going to since i was 9. he has a girlfriend, but i've convinced myself that they'll break up before i see him this summer at camp. do you see what i mean?

as a writer and a generally creative person, i love creating these beautiful narratives in my head about how someone is my soulmate and how everything in my life has been leading up to me meeting them. i'm starting to believe that i'm delusional, though. however, the idea that i will eventually find someone and be happy with them the way i have always wanted is an absolute truth to me, but the problem is that i want to find them sooner rather than later. yes, i know that i am still very young, but these twenty years are all i know--i can't see into the future.

i don't know what my point is here. i feel like maybe there is something deep down inside of me that is preventing me from being in a relationship. i don't know. but i also don't know how much longer i can live like this.