Dear Emily,
I am recently single after almost getting married to the girl of my dreams-or so I thought. She broke up with me just two weeks before the small intimate ceremony that we were planning. That was almost a year ago and I am just now beginning to heal. I haven’t even had sex with anyone. But honestly, I never want to get involved with anyone ever again. I just don't want to feel that pain of a break up.

My friends are starting to try and set me up and I refuse to open myself up to someone, no matter how great she is. I am terrified. How can I move on and date again?
Lost in Louisville

Dear Lost,

Dating is so over-rated. You just need to get laid. I am half kidding. If your ex is the last person you slept with, I would look into a little sexual intervention to break up the lull and get that monkey off your back. Did any of that even make sense?
Healing is a process. And part of that process is getting out there and dating again, not for the purpose of finding a life partner or wife, but for you, your self-esteem and joy.

Right now, it’s important for you to take dating lightly and not look at anyone as a potential life long mate because until you are whole and complete, you have no business getting involved with someone. No one should enter a relationship with the idea that they “need” someone. It is when you are free of needing a partner that the partner will show up.

Thankfully, she left you before the ceremony.

As my mother would say, “You've been spared.” You will open your heart to love and trust again as long as you focus on the good in people. Not everyone is a selfish, masochistic whacko like your ex. Sorry, that was rude.

Is it possible you could get involved with a woman and get hurt again? Of course! But if that idea stopped any of us, no one would ever be in relationships. You have to remember that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. And because of the tremendous pain you suffered from this rejection, you have now acquired a strength that you didn't have before and that strength will come in handy your entire life.

Find the things that you are grateful for in your ex leaving you because this all happened for a reason, for your personal growth and for your benefit. Next, you must forgive her. Forgiving her frees you of feeling like a victim. And when we are in victim-mode, we have no power over our lives. She left you because you created it and you must have known there was a better woman out there.

The most important relationship you have is the one with yourself. Make sure you love the person you wake up with and go to sleep with every night. Only then will you be able to take the chance to fall in love again without feeling the fear of getting hurt. When you have sufficient love for yourself, you will be virtually untouchable.

Emily Wilcox is a lesbian advice columnist and author of 100 Lesbians Walk Into a Bar.... Follow her at @100lesbians on Twitter