Just because you're not quick to express emotion doesn't mean you'll never find love, or can't love. Even sociopaths can feel love (granted, it's a kind of sick love, but still). It's scientifically proven that the feeling we call "love" is hardwired into all of us. So I really wouldn't worry about that man. But like I said, you have to leave your comfort zone (and believe me, I know how hard that can be) which could be your room, house, or whatever, and put yourself out there.
Mental instability is not something people are usually looking for when they search for a potential partner or mate. This has nothing to do with a comfort zone. I can not explain it really, but I am getting physically and mentally tired when I have to much contact with people. This is not something that I want you know.
Also, sorry that hear that you had such trouble in your life.
I had possible mental issues that affected my relationship. I had my first girlfriend about a year back now, and in no way was it a positive experience for me. I'm one of those people who incessantly criticizes someone (in my head) for not having what I consider to be as good taste in culture as me, or as eloquent a way to describe their opinions other than constantly saying 'I like this' or 'I don't like that', or 'this is stupid' etc.
Now I'm an atheist, and the lady I dated was of the pagan/wiccan faith. I disliked that very much, but I filed it away in my mind. She likes movies I consider to be bad like Eragon, which is her all time favorite. I filed it away.
Slowly we started to like hanging around less and less. And one day I broke things off and she was pretty flabbergasted. To me it was all logical, because I was thinking about how the relationship didn't work and I didn't appreciate the relationship for quite a long while since then. And I had tried to communicate this to her ever so slightly at some points, but she was pretty oblivious to it, and you can't change someone anyway. That I think, was my biggest mistake. I assumed that what I didn't like about her, I could change. That is extremely stupid in hindsight.
At one point she said that she doesn't know what's going on in my head.
I think it could never have worked. I need someone who can talk for an hour about the little things they love and don't love and like and don't like about something they like a whole lot, like I can about say, Warhammer 40000. And I end up seeing anyone who can't even do that about the thing they love the most as shallow. For her it was just: "I love dragons. I really love dragons. Why? I just think they're cool and I really love them."
I think it also doesn't help that I hate ever single social circle I have access to, and not a day goes by that I don't hit myself in the head for not trying to succeed in my education almost at all, at least untill it was too late. If I think back now I'm thinking I could probably have met the kind of people in who's contact I could relish, and now I'm pretty depressed about the people I have to force myself to interact with on a daily basis. But then again, maybe higher education could never have worked for me either, seeing as how I'm pretty left handed when it comes to technical thinking, such as in math, to pick just one example.
Yeah my cousin is a dragon and pagan/new age (not really wiccan, but new age more so) freak. He says that dragons are guardians and protectors or whatever. He's into Neo-Gnosticism right now, which I think is a little.... out there. As for me, I believe that all the major religions are just simply different paths leading to the same thing. I've even written several books (not publicly) where I record my own beliefs. But I stopped trying to tell them to other people after getting into extremely tense arguments with radical-christians and muslims. I have a Jewish friend whose very open minded though. They may be the most peaceful of the Abrahamic religions. My favorite religion(s)? Zoroastrianism, Taoism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Mohism (extinct). I take beliefs from every religion that I think would be right. I just think to myself, "Alright, God is loving, caring... hmm... would he really damn people to burn alive for an eternity. Probably not. Therefore there probably is no hell. At best, we probably are reincarnated over and over again until we get it right. Not "earn" the right to go into heaven (which is really just going back to the source for eternal rest, I don't know about gold roads and stuff), but we need to be prepared for it. If we didn't need preparation, I'm sure we would just go straight back to him when we die. So this is the three things I call the "Preparatory Phases" which we need to be enlightened in to go back to god:
1) Soul/Spirituality (we need to realize the truth, I have the Eight Truths of Spirituality, but I'm not going to write down an entire belief system point to point. If you want to know more, PM me. But we need to realize the truth of spirituality. Which is, there's no real "one" religion. In the sense we think of today anyways. The real "one" religion is based on love, community, and connection. We need to realize that God doesn't send Muslims or heaven and Christians to hell, or Christians to heaven and Muslims to hell. I think you get my point).
2) Body/Life (We need to realize that we hold life for a single purpose to seek out knowledge and learn. People ask their preists/Imams/whatever all the time. "Why are we hear". To be prepared and to learn. But along the way, we need to learn that love is the greatest of all things. My second Preparatory Phase lives by the Golden Rule. Do not do unto others what you would not want done unto you. We don't just need to seek knowledge, we need to find a way to benefit ourselves and others with the knowledge we've learned. No forcing your religion on other people, running different religions out of the neighborhood, or bombing a building full of infidels. From what I think, there will be no golden roads, gates, 77 virgins, or anything in "heaven" because in order to experience things such as this you need a body. Our soul will most likely not resemble our body. We will be on a higher, etheral plane. Golden gates, roads, and raining diamonds are things that MANKIND likes, and things that they thought they'd like to see in their paradise. But we need to know that what we're dealing with is the unknowable. Therefore our final resting place will probably not have anything like this, because they are worldly and material possessions. Our final resting place will be completely immaterial.
3) Mind (This part is very hard to explain, so I will make it quick. I believe our soul is housed in either our heart, or our brain. Thus being because, our brain is the key center of our bodies. When we think about doing something, everything we do, everything we believe, every thought, belief, etc. originates from our mind, and thus, our soul. Less likely, but still could be, would be our heart. Our heart pumps the life blood into us that keeps our body alive. But this is why I don't think it's in the heart, it keeps our body alive, and our soul has nothing to do with keeping us alive. Things like depression and love both extend from the mind. For example, when your feeling depression, you sometimes get weird pains you can't explain, like very uncomfortable knots in your stomach. When your depressed, you can fuck up your entire body. You do this because when your depressed your not just harming your body, but your soul. Or when your happy and giving love, your nourishing your soul. Etc. etc. I'm not going to make this too long.
Also, people tell me how can you believe in God and Science. I believe science is simply the tool(s) that God used to work with, the tools he used to create us. He started out by seeding this world with life, single celled organisms, and let them grow from there. God has unlimited patience, so the billions of years it took was like nothing to him. You also see God depicted as things like a man/woman. What the hell is that? I believe he is simply a spirit, unseen in this world but seen in the spiritual world. For all we know he could be a ball of white light with sentience, or he could be some kind of great mass of orange/other colorful lights constantly moving through the universe, destroying the old and dead and creating the new and live.
Anyway, my final and last piece is this. When we're put on this world, we go around learning and collecting knowledge and experiences. Then when we die, if we're ready/prepared; we go back to God, bringing with us the knowledge and experiences we collected on this Earth. Exactly why this happens, I cannot say. But like I said; we're dealing with the unknowable. I don't like how religions try to describe god and his traits. We know nothing about him, and even when we hit our Enlightenment and finish our three Preparatory Phases, we still won't know anything about him. We will just know enough. Then, when we go back to him in death, maybe, no one can be sure, but maybe, we will be given the knowledge we crave and seek. But I don't believe you will be punished on Earth for not believing in God. We we're given no evidence whatsoever, and we were created (evolved) to question things and wonder about life. We naturally do this because we're hardwired to start preparing ourselves. It is a very important part of parents to prepare their children until the hit the age of sixteen, and then they should stop telling them their beliefs, and let them experience the world for themselves.
I've met many many people who hate my beliefs and disagree with them 100%.
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Back on topic:
I agree with you about how having someone who is the complete opposite of, well, you, probably won't work out in a relationship. But; I've seen at least two couples I know that argue about almost everything (not a tense, heated argument, but a logical, calm argument) but when you see them spending time together you can just tell that they're great together.
And you're absolutely right. You CAN'T change someone. But you CAN get them to see things from a different point of view. When they refuse this, it is called close-mindedness. We all have a little bit of this in us, some more than others.