Dating apps and anxiety about casual dating

I have a love hate relationship with dating apps. For background: I met my last partner of 4 years via dating app when I was 18. We were in a serious relationship within a month, so it moved fast. I don't think I would have made some of the decisions I made had it been a slower more casual start to the relationship. Looking back it wasn't healthy. So now, I'm wanting to start dating again, and at the very least meeting new people because I'm in a new city, but I'm really wanting to keep it casual and meet a few people so I don't go overboard on one person like last time.

I used an app for about 3 days a few months ago and it made me so uncomfortable and disheartened that I deleted it. That was when my breakup was fresher, and now I'm returning to it with a bit of a clearer head, and I've actually started talking to some people who I think I could like should we meet. However, I'm way too scared of the apps and talking for some reason, it's like visceral anxiety thinking about it. For whatever reason the feeling of talking to people on apps, especially multiple, and them knowing me personally, like perceiving me?? is scaring the everloving crap out of me. To be clear I want to date, I like the idea of it. I think I'm just terrified of hurting people or making a wrong decision or something. I'm talking to a few people on this app and they all seem nice and cool, but I'm scared I'll go out with one person and.. be stuck with them for four years again for fear of hurting them, or that I'll end up really liking them now and hating them later, or that they'll end up not liking me if I do end up enjoying their company.

What's worse is I've found myself honing in on one person I've enjoyed talking to, but we haven't even met yet. That's not necessarily a bad thing but it's worrying me since I'm scared I'll get caught up in a person again and I'll have blinders on to everything going wrong. I feel like at this point I shouldn't be thinking about literal strangers.

I want to have the time to myself to feel confident in myself and not feel I "need" anyone but that I "want" to be with someone I can get to know over time. However I still want to get to know people and feel like yeah, I'm still eligible to date and can meet people. So casual dating makes sense to me. So why the hell am I so afraid of it, and how do I get more comfortable with it? Are there people who are good at this who like, have tips about not being so anxious about it?