I haven’t dated for years and want to try again. How do I prepare for the storm | Annalisa Barbieri

I haven’t been on a date in eight years and want to start next year. How can I prepare for the storm?

I want to love and care for someone. I long for a supportive, funny life partner. Should I say that to a man? And is that too much in a dating profile?

I vowed off relationships until I could permanently fix my anxiety. An expat temporarily settled in Singapore, I’m still making friends and feel nervous around unfamiliar people. I am embarrassed that I’m a broke writer and student. I love what I do, but many Singaporeans are career-focused.

How can I restart dating in the most emotionally supportive way? How do I stay brave when the lightning strikes?

The question to ask is if you really want to date or feel you should? I wonder why this feels like a huge deal to you: the abstaining until things are “just right”, saying you’ll date “next year”. We often do this if we’re not ready for something but feel we should be. Dating, like any relationships beyond childhood, is most successful when one feels comfortable in oneself, so the relationship becomes an addendum rather than a substitution for something.

UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) accredited psychotherapist Hannah Jackson-McCamley and I both found your use of language really interesting: “storm”, “lightning strikes”. Jackson-McCamley wondered if your “relational experiences, dating or otherwise, might associate relationships with being tumultuous and something one has to prepare for or defend against”. Early experiences can influence how we expect interpersonal relationships to be.

Jackson-McCamley thought it was “beautiful you want to be so generous with your love … but I wonder if being a caring person is part of your script and perhaps redolent of the role you take in relationships? It’s also great that you are able to articulate what you want from a partner and are considering making it clear from the start. However, not everyone may be used to such clarity or be looking for a life partner.”

The thing to remember is that you’ve abstained from dating – and that’s OK. But people you meet might not have. So they may, at least initially, treat it less seriously than you might. And that’s OK too – you are both allowed your different takes.

You mention anxiety and Jackson-McCamley said anxiety was “a totally normal response to a perceived stress or danger, so it isn’t something you need to permanently fix. But I’d be keen to explore your experience of anxiety in relation to dating – and beyond. I want you to feel reassured that no one is ‘fixed’, we are all works-in-progress.”

You said nothing else of your life, and we wondered what has gone on/is going on for you. “Give yourself grace,” said Jackson-McCamley, “for trying to make friends and confronting your nerves around new people. I wonder if this is the first time you’ve felt different or like an outsider?”

She also urged you not to discount what you might bring to a relationship “beyond traditional accoutrements of status: money, job title, etc”. You say you want a supportive, funny life partner, so your ‘wants’ are not material, and those of others might not be, either.

Falling in love has risks, some real, some imagined. It sounds as if you see people daily in your student life, which is great. This is the best environment to meet people, both for friendship and romance. I wonder if by “dating” you meant using apps, but perhaps a more real-world, softer approach that starts by making friends and seeing where it goes might actually suit you better.

Every week, Annalisa Barbieri addresses a personal problem sent in by a reader. If you would like advice from Annalisa, please send your problem to ask.annalisa@theguardian.com. Annalisa regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence. Submissions are subject to our terms and conditions. The latest series of Annalisa’s podcast is available here.