Wondering about ability to love

I've been trying to figure out my own motivations for falling so hard for someone who very well might not be able to love back. Sometimes I feel like he's trying so hard to appear as someone lovable and that all those impulses might really be there, but sometimes it seems he really can't be bothered to sincerely care about other people. It's an interesting dichotomy, or is everyone like that, and I just haven't noticed before? I sincerely hope for him, that he can find and return whatever it is he's looking for. That he can believe he deserves it for real.  Anyway, I've been trying to break my own patterns of falling for men I won't have to commit to, because they will never commit to me. What am I so afraid of? How did we all end up so damaged, and what was the inner resiliency of the people who didn't? I've been working on it this year.

And in thinking that I often fall for men who can't or don't want to (same result in the end) love me, I remembered that much earlier in life, I did love someone (okay, more than one) without any fatal flaws (red flags.) The flaws he had then were nothing that were intolerable, more quirks that could be lived around. I, on the other hand, had plenty of fatal flaws at the time, which is partially why it didn't work out. But even in the state of my most basket-case existence, I was able to choose someone pretty darn centered and healthy (and he hadn't had an easy life either, but he had a good disposition somehow.) (And during the same period of time, I had a friend that loved me fiercely without any strings attached. I don't think I've been loved that much by anyone else in my entire life. I certainly needed it then. I've often thought it was a shame I didn't feel any physical attraction...we made a good team. He loved me as a human being, it wasn't a physical relationship. I loved him, too, though not romantically.) So, I am capable of it, what happened in the intervening years that made me so ambivalent?

And yet, I do think I have the capacity to love, but I now want someone who wants to know me, it can't be all one-sided. I can't be expected to exist only to adore him, without a return in sentiment.  I know it sounds silly, but why would I fall for someone who barely can be bothered to take an interest in me? That I became so elated if he paid any attention...screw it, I want more than that now. I'm interesting, too.  And as I said earlier, I'm not begging anymore.  I mean that this time. I don't want that life. I know this is really personal, but only a couple of people read it, and you've already read all the other personal stuff. The rest are spam hits.

(I think there might be a bunch of clowns outside my house, for real. Seafair.) I will try to have better sentence structure from here on out. I'm capable of that, too.