Pretty much a large part of my school life I've been bullied. Now I am a 23 year old business owner with quite some serious socializing issues. I've pretty much spent most of my late-teens on my own with very few friends with whom I only barely had contact with.

Quite frankly I'm sick of it. I'm sick of being that guy at the side of the party silently observing others sipping his drink and not talking much. It's not that I am anti-social, I'm just very introverted from having to hold back my opinions throughout most of my school-life.

All I really want though, is the simple things that'd make anybody happy. A couple of close friends and a relationship.

I've been steadily just forcing myself into more social encounters and talking more to people on my own incentive, and it's been working. My pool of friends is slowly growing and I have more and more contact with a select few. One thing however is still not fairing as well as just ordinary friendship. And that is the girlfriend part.

The last relationship I was in was when I was 16 years old. I met a girl during a visitation-day at our local high-school. Turned out we we're attending the same school at the time, she was just 2 years below me. Started hanging out in between classes and it was all good. Fastforward 3 months. Turned out she was seeing 3 other guys as well and essentially using them to get free stuff such as movietickets.

Fast forward again to about 2 weeks ago. I started getting in touch with an old crush of mine from when I was 17 and in last year of that school. She was 1 year below me and we hung out quite a bit during that time. We started talking about what we are up to these days. I really want to get to know her better, but I am afraid I'll somehow mess this up and push her away. Recent conversations have all dried up quite fast as I am really awkward around girls I like. Any tips?