Finding love as a neurotic, et al

Everyone at the dinner table was talking about what astrologers had found about their past lives. Dad was a peasant’s son; uncle was blessed with a rich kingdom. I could have been a cat who lost her kittens. That would explain my perpetual distaste for my current world.
I have decided to take things into my own hands. If I want to find love, I must map out a thorough plan. I’m up at 3 AM, the result of this very burst of hopeful tingling in my stomach that gurgles: I will be loved. Love will arrive. Soon. Gurgle.
The only condition? It must be proper. I don’t want it if it isn’t tailored to my trauma.
Therefore, I must be ready with my manual. “How to Love Me: A Starter Pack”:
1. Be gentle with your words, please.
2. Tell me you find my unyielding ways of safeguarding the interests of all women, my unashamed attempts to snap at whoever disagrees, sexy.
3. Don’t ask me why I have scars on my face. Notice that I avert my gaze every time you cup my face in your hands. Make me believe you find me attractive not despite but because.
4. Tell me you find my inability to not hyperventilate in social settings completely normal. Tell me people are idiots because they are overlooking what a great person I am, because it takes time to get to know me.
5. Read my writing produced under a caffeine-induced manic urgency sincerely, tell me you love that I’m a thinker-writer-type.
Love holds no space for secrets but I would rather live with mine. In the unlikely event of oversharing, I feel as though I’ve been stripped naked in the middle of a street, or have been mugged, or both. These secrets keep me company. They give me a rich inner life, endless mind chatter and make me feel like I have a lot of close friends I don’t hate.
I try to recall the pre-depressed-and-anxious me, and I don’t recall her thriving at life either. If anything, these have been gifts of some character at best, and an ability to completely shut down, at worst. They’ve given me something to talk about on first dates, help me news-flash scream into their eyes, helped me take the first stride at being broken. One day, the dating apps will add a trauma-declaration section — trigger warnings, mental health status, coping mechanisms, all laid bare.
I could rely on my appearance in these settings. I know I am beautiful. Conditionally. I am prettier in person. Under the right lighting, having slept a full 8 hours, during a good conversation and with the right flash of anger that lands.
Despite it all, there’s one kind of love I am fluent in. Reading. But ff course, they nod and tilt their heads, sigh and smile at the right cues when I lose hold over myself, despite myself, and decide to ramble on about all the feelings a book brings out in me, a victim of my flooding emotions resulting from what is, in their view, just-a-book. JUST a book?
Maybe this is what finding love as a neurotic, et al, is.