Growing up

I'm 22 and I've been living alone for 4 years now. I'm a manager in a Parisian Palace, I pay my bills, I do my taxes... I do all the things grown ups do and that most of my friends don't do just yet, as most of them are still in college... I've grown up really fast, it's like I closed my eyes and when I opened them again, boom, there it was, responsibilities, decisions, adulthood.
Sure, when you're 17 all you want is to be independent and your parents can't even count the times in which you said: "Leave me alone, I'm old enough to know what I'm doing".
I've partied a lot, had really good times with my friends and experienced enough to know where my limits are. I've made mistakes, some big, some small and I think I pretty much did all the silly things you should do in your college years.
I've been telling everyone who wants to hear or not that I want to settle down and have a real steady relationship, but every time I would meet someone and start dating them I would do something to screw it up... usually it was cheating. I was saying one thing, but I was feeling something completely different. I wanted to be free. I wanted to come home and just be on my own if I wanted to.
For the past month what I say and what I feel have finally become the same thing, and in some ways it's giving me an inner peace, that I didn't have before. F. did this to me. Meeting him, a down-to-earth person who also had to grow up way faster than he ever intended to, made me realize that I really didn't want to be alone anymore. I want to have a friend, a lover, a home...
It's ironic that the one man that made me realize that, is the one man I can't have. Since I met him, I know that I'm completely in love with him. Silly, coming from a person that doesn't believe in love at first sight. But apparently it does exist and I really wish it didn't. Meething F. was faith, I know it. Thanks to him I know now that I'm finally ready to commit to one single person, and that I won't feel like before, where I was always searching for something more.
Every moment I spent with F. was magical and when I was leaving him behind in the train to Paris I really had faith, that maybe somehow through all the difficulties that stand between us there would be a slight chance, that it may work.
Every single time someone is about to tell me something that will hurt me I can feel it in my stomach. It's my sixth sense. When F. called me that one night I was in the courtyard of my apartment building, sitting in the cold and the rain listening to every word he was saying and every second that was passing by the pain inside was just getting worse. Which is stupid, because we really only know each other for a month, and I shouldn't be feeling the way I do.
He said his life is too difficult for a relationship in the moment, that he has too many things he needs to sort out and that he respects me too much to put me through it. And all I wanted to say was that it didn't matter, that I was ready, that I was willing to commit through good or bad, no matter how rough, as long as we did it together. But I didn't say that. I didn't say anything. I just said "OK". And then I was silent. And he kept asking me to say how I felt, that he didn't want to cause a blank between us. And I couldn't speak. I couldn't say anything. Just silence. Really painful silence. And then he said the one thing that hurt me the most: "You're really pretty you know. You're my temptation."
I'm pretty....
What is she talking about is what you're thinking right now. He made her a compliment. And in another situation this would have made me happy of course, but in this scenario this sentence said it all. You're pretty. But pretty gets the guy for a night, a weekend or with a bit of luck for the summer. But pretty doesn't get the happy ending, with the white gown and the butterflies in the stomach. Pretty is not enough for a man to fall in love. I don't want to be JUST pretty. I'm tired of being just a pretty girl that you can laugh with.
I wanna be so much more than a pretty girl with a nice smile.
When you're a kid you dream of what you will be when you grow up. Being pretty was never one of my goals and yet it's the only thing I'm good at apparently...

Being true to yourself

My biggest weakness is that I don't want to burden people. When I meet a guy I don't want to talk about what I want, what I need or what I deserve. I just live the moment as it is... and keep all the thoughts to myself, to think about them when I am alone at home.
I am terrified that talking about my feelings will destroy the moment. That the man I am trying so hard to impress will get annoyed or will be disappointed, that our relationship is not as easy breezy as he thought it was going to be...
F. is amazing. Being with him makes me realize that I really want a stable, happy relationship. Whenever we are together I take in every single moment and treasure it like the most precious of memories. But when we are apart, all these questions run around my head that I should be asking him but I can't seem to find the courage to say out loud... "Are we a couple?", "Are you still seeing your ex-girlfriend... are you still in love with her?" "Can we be happy together for real?"
Everything between me and F. feels like in a dream and I am scared that if I ask one of those questions the bubble that we have built around us will crash back down to earth and burst... and we'll wake up in cold reality. Reality is we are 800 kms apart. Reality is he has a son with a woman that is trying to win him back after having broken his heart. Reality is that I can't compete against her...
I'm pretty, I'm fun and he adores me... but is that enough against a woman that had his child, that had his heart in her hands and threw it away, a woman that lives just a few minutes away from him... a woman that managed to play with his head and made a crack in his soul.
I want to believe that if people are meant to be together in the end it all works out, but somehow I have the strange feeling that I need to talk to him about serious things in order for that to even happen... Serious things... I'm scared of burdening him, since he is already troubled enough as it is. I want to be the breath of fresh air, the place he can turn to when the whole world seems like it's against him, and I feel like if I bring my feelings into play I'll take away that "easi-ness" between us...
If circumstances would be different I don't doubt for a second that F. and me would have been perfect for each other. We think the same, feel the same, act the same and want the same things, it's spooky.
He agrees with me in all the things that need to be agreed upon for a couple to work in a long-term but he is still different enough from me, that we can complement each other.
So what should I do? Take the risk of involving feelings? There are only two outcomes... Either feelings take this relationship to a new level where I don't have to worry about who I am and what I represent... Or it can end everything... and if it does, then maybe it's good, because it wasn't meant to be... But it's terrifying and I'm just not sure I'm ready to lose someone again...