The men I attract.

It's becoming quite evident that I'm doing something wrong when it comes to men.  I always tend to attract the ones that I'm not even remotely interested in.  This may be because I am genuinely nice to everyone I come in contact with.  I've come to the conclusion that many men misconstrue this and believe that my niceness translates to my romantic interest in them.  In my eyes, I'm just being nice and holding casual conversation, but then I get random proclamations of love and adoration.  My luck thus far has been slim to none.  Let me give you some examples.  When I was 18, I worked with a guy that I thought to be very attractive.  I would have been interested in him if he wasn't, well....gay!  Homosexual Harry dressed very well and we had really good conversation.  He started to pursue me and asked me out.  Hmm....maybe he's not gay, I would think to myself.  Why would I give up the opportunity to date someone just because my first instinct was wrong?  So, we dated for a while, things didn't work out, life moved on.  A year or so later I got a call from Harry and what did he tell me!?  He had a boyfriend!  Ok, so strike one...I dated the gay dude!  A couple of years later, another guy came into my life who was remotely attractive, but I had a weird feeling about him.  Let's call him John Deere, because he had this crazy obsession with anything John Deere!  It was weird, that might have been the underlying reason for my lack of interest.  My roommate at the time convinced me that he was a nice guy and that I was being to picky.  I thought that maybe she was right, so I went on some dates with him.  There was a minor spark, but nothing I wanted to pursue.  I decided that Mr. Deere and I weren't going to work out, so I communicated that to him.  Not too long after, I found out that he's MARRIED!!!  Strike 2!  Moving along with my life, dating casually, I met this absolutely beautiful man.  From the moment I saw him, I vowed that he was the most attractive man I'd seen in my life.  He was my roommates friend, and I just knew that he'd never be interested in me.  Wrong!  I was shocked!  My self esteem took a huge boost, we dated, it was great!  Until...after we had dated for probably 2 months he demanded that I quit my job so that I can dedicate all of my time to him so that he could see if I'm the one he wanted to marry!  Anyone who knows me is aware that this was the wrong move for this eager guy.  Although his looks won me over every time, I could not budge with my standards in this crazy, typical Mormon dating story.  This was just a minor loss in my life, so I didn't really think too much about it. Mr. Handsome was also cut loose from my life.  Not too long later, I met this beautiful black man.  We dated, he was hot, in the army, seemingly a good guy.  We weren't exclusive  and we would date casually.  He was dating another girl, which didn't really bother me until I got phone call from Trashy McWhitetrash's friend telling me that if I spoke with her boyfriend again she'd kill me.  Seriously?!  I mean he was good looking, but nothing to fight over!  Girl please!  Strike 3, dating a drama ridden, relationship phobic whore of a man.  Even though, I felt that I, at this point, had struck out because of my seemingly hopeless dating life, I felt the need to push on!  So, I kept my options open and again, here came another guy I truly wasn't interested in.  My friends and I called him Sweaty McSweaterson, because he sweat soooo much!  It was absolutely disgusting.  He pursued me for a while, with little or no response from me.  This caused him, in his very grown up way, to bad mouth me to everyone at church saying that I am difficult and basically to steer clear from  me on the dating scene.  How would he know what I'm like in the dating scene?  We never dated!  Just because I wasn't interested in his sweat rings, I have an issue?  Whatever!  Between all of these above mentioned guys, there were little romances here and there, but nothing that ever became anything.  I've dated the dirt bike racer, the business professional, the real estate agent, the manual laborer, the overly needy guy, the emotional wreck, the emotionally unavailable one, the overbearing type, the overly macho guy, the jerk, the tall guy, the short guy, the balding one, the body builder, the guy with kids, the divorced guy.  I've been the best friend who's the fall back for all of his lost relationships, and the girl that hopes he'll finally realize he loves me, I've been the heartbroken, I've been the heartbreaker.  I felt like I'd done it all.  I truly had a buffet of unavailable, or unwanted guys.  This was in no way upsetting to me, because through all of these experiences, I learned so much about me and what I want and don't want.  Since moving to Kansas, I haven't dated much, so my sampling in the dating world has dwindled a bit.  However, this does not mean that I have not had love proclaimed to me (very literally) from a few interesting sources.  These have come recently and it's reminding me very much of my past experiences.  One night I was out with my friends and missed 3 calls within 10 minutes from Lovestruck Luke.  I'd invited him to do things with us before and had tried to make him feel included.  Apparently, once again, he took this niceness as my interest in dating him, or falling in love with him.  So, out of those 3 calls, he left one, very heartfelt message.  I listened to it a while later and was dumb founded!  It said "I've got something to tell ya, we are getting totally wasted over here and we want you to join us!  And there's a little P.S. on that, I am in so in love with you, I just want you to come out!"  Seriously?!  I let my friend Dubya listen to it and she about died!  I'm convinced that he was so drunk that maybe his feelings for me were inflated.  Then, not too long after this lovely experience, a semi-similar situation happened.  I was helping out with a church function and was in charge of getting people to volunteer.  I did so and asked a guy from the ward to lend a hand.  We hadn't talked much before and had never hung out.  He came and helped out, I thanked him, that was the end.  Right?  NOPE!  I was getting ready to leave and a couple of us were talking.  It was brought up that I'll hopefully be moving in a couple of months for work.  This guy proceeds to tell me how upset he is with this because I'm the only one he wants to date.  Mind you, we were not the only ones in this conversation, so it was even more bizarre.  How do you respond to this?!  I felt so awkward!  How does he know I'm the only one he wants to date?  Because I'd invited him to lend service and we said approximately 10 words to each other?  Men are an unusual type, of this I'm sure!  I thought that women were typically the ones to be overly excited about someone's interest, or the ones that overanalyze every little gesture.  I don't feel that I'm flirtatious with these men, I'm just my genuine, nice self.  Are my standards too high, am I just too picky?  I don't think so, but I've been told this in the past.  My thought on the matter is:  if you're looking for someone to spend the rest of eternity with, wouldn't you take it seriously and not settle?  I've seen the negative effects of people who have jumped into relationships without really considering the consequences.  I feel that I'm better off taking my time and weeding through the crazy world of men and finding one that truly fits.