I'm likely projecting a lot of my own life experience because I'm afraid of what might come out if I got involved with someone. Because I've had a history of not so great mental health and I basically have a hard trusting myself that I could be mature. So for me, I have to deal with my own shit first, but maybe as another commenter suggested, perfect is the enemy of good.

I feel like if someone goes into this with the expectation that a romantic relationship, or a family and kids, will solve their problems, then they might find out that they're wrong. Like, they're hedging all of their bets on those things and when you look at, say, the incel community, then you can see it's almost an all-or-nothing proposition because so much is riding on sexual or romantic validation at the expense of almost everything else.

And there are the people who have children to try and rescue a marriage, and then they find out it doesn't work like that. Sunk-cost fallacy, maybe you're not happy with someone and you're also not happy alone, but there is someone else out there who connect with you in the way you need.

If I were to rephrase my original post, I'd say that you should listen to your needs but you shouldn't dismiss that some of those needs, maybe, are fulfilled by you, and not someone else. So make sure that you keep yourself happy and don't put the entirety of that responsibility on another person.

Personally, my priority has been to make close friends and to do my best to keep them, while not being afraid of losing them over time.

Or to put it all another way, I'm the only constant in my life and everything and everyone else is a variable.