Why do I always run away?

[Alias]

Hi, I'm a new member to these forums, and figured it couldn't hurt to post my question somewhere to see if I could come any closer to understand why I react to relationships in the way that I do.

Ever since I ever became interested in women and pursued them in a relationship (I'm a guy, by the way) I always, without fail, end up doing something to intentionally destroy that possibility, or if I've gotten as far as to be in a relationship I will break it off with some ridiculous excuse or cliche (it's not you it's me, kind of thing).

I'll give a brief history of some of my relationships so you can get an idea of what my love life has been like for as long as I can remember:

7th Grade - I was friends with this girl for 1 year already, we got along really well, had as many shared interests as you could for our age and we were both attracted to one another. The problem was, at least for me, was that she was in a relationship for 6th Grade and part of the 7th Grade, so when she became single and was over her ex-boyfriend, we both expressed a desire to date. This is where the crazy comes in, the exact MOMENT she expressed an interest towards me, my feelings immediately evaporated and I then tried to figure a way out of the potential romance.

We still remained friendly after a couple weeks had passed, and I took her to Jr. High prom as friends because months before that she and her then boyfriend broke up (break ups aren't the common theme in my dilemma, trust me).

9th Grade - After trying to start a relationship with a friend of mine (she rejected me softly) I got over it after a couple of weeks and quickly became fast friends with a classmate, and even more quickly we started a relationship with each other. Now, given the fact that in the span of 1 week I had my first real conversation with this person and then started dating her wasn't already rushing into things too quickly, the moment we became intimate the same thing happened again as it did in 7th Grade.

At the time, I attributed this relationship's downfall to moving too quickly, but years later (with hindsight being as good as it is) I realized that it was the intimacy, much like a reciprocation of feelings as my experience in 7th Grade occurred, that was what drove me away from this girl.

Later in high school the same thing would happen, and in every one of these relationships I made sure to become good friends and take things at a moderate pace, to prevent a repeat of what happened to me in 9th grade, but try as I might the moment I became physically intimate (or rather, the moment after) I wanted out and my feelings were suddenly nonexistent.

As a man in his early 20s I've resigned myself to not pursue any relationship, not only because of my history of "running away", but also because of all the other complications and hurt feelings that come along with meeting the right person for you (mutual trust, comfortable being yourself, not changing who you are, etc.). That being said, however, I still want to know why, or at the very least gain a little bit more understanding of why I've ran away like this throughout my teenage and young adult life.

Any and all input would be greatly appreciated, and my apologies for the rather lengthy post, but I really wanted to get all of this off my chest for having carried it so long.

Sincerely,
Alias

[Jason250]

Thanks for your post