In a nutshell: Be yourself. Being yourself is for dating, what wearing mosquito repellent is for the summer, you want to repel the wrong ones so you can attract the right person/people. For example, if someone gets scared of you for being too strong, too soft, too fast, stable, or whatever you are, then you will know that this particular person is not for you. Should you change, stop being strong, soft, fast, stable? No, non of these qualities is inherently wrong, but some just fit better than others. Think of puzzle pieces, none of them is better or worse innately, some just fit others don´t. What is the point of doing anything different, not being yourself? Even if you get together with a person you have changed for, do you want to act like somebody else for the rest of your life? If you want to be with somebody it will always be YOU being with somebody. You won´t change just because you don´t suit that person. You might also consider seeing it more as them not suiting you.
There will be someone that is the right fit for you and the other way around. I don´t think it is even possible to not find someone that fits us and I don´t speak from a compassionate, motherly point of view here, but from a very practical one. There are more than 7,9 billion people on this planet. Even if you have very complicated traits and even if a big number falls away because of cultural restrictions like great age differences or too big of a distance between you etc., there still will be a couple of million people left. Maybe that one person you have set your eyes on, that you want and nobody else, will not fit, at least not as a romantic partner, but there might still be a great friendship or business partnership in it or at least a great personal lesson to learn. I believe that whatever we want, we want for a good reason, conscious or subconscious, it just doesn´t always mean that we should have it. It seems only human to me if we sometimes mix it all up, get it wrong, why not be our human selves? If you like doing something, whatever it is, do that, if possible in groups, for example online or at an institution or club in your area. If you don´t like to be around people find someone you can write to. If you want to be with more than one person, tell your love interests that, if possible tell everybody. All that makes it more likely for the right people to find you, the people that want the same.
If you are not sure if you know what you like, go and find out. In my experience the problem there is very seldomly not knowing how to figure that out. The problem is more likely allowing ourselves to find out, to become self-aware, because if we do, it is much harder to not also be ourselves. And if we are ourselves, if we are who we are, will others really be able to love us? There is that chance of people around us, now or in our past, that have given us the feeling of being unlovable, at least in some of our colours. Actually, being rejected isn´t just likely, it really is inevitable at some point in our lives, simply because everyone has sides to their character that others dislike, for their own reasons. There are always qualities that don´t fit and being the complex and diverse beings we are, some of them will come together when we meet.
Please never start a relationship with somebody thinking that person will change in time, change into whatever you want or need. That is a very disrespectful and ugly thing to do, to that person and yourself. Whether or not somebody changes and how they change is not yours to say, it is not within your area of freedom, it is within theirs and theirs only. You can ask them, you can tell them what you want and if somebody hurts you, either by who/how they are or through their actions, you have the right to leave, everything else would be a violation of your human rights. But in return, you don´t have any right to decide how somebody else should be, as long as they don´t violate your area of personal freedom.
So what if we do it anyway? What if we are ourselves? Won´t people attack us? Would anybody really be able to love us weird, dweeby, corky beings, always too much of this and too little of that other thing? Yes! Because everyone else is just as weird and corky as you are and everyone tries their best to hide it, just like you do. Some hide more, some just small things, some do a better job at hiding than others but everyone does and we are all similarly quirky inside. And even if they don´t love us, if we are so kind and carrying to make being ourselves ok, then there still will be at least one person that openly and truly loves us, ourselves.