I've found that having a good perspective of things helped me a lot in a similar phase. You're 16, you have plenty of time. Remember that you're stuck right in the middle of puberty too, with all the chemical imbalances that comes with. Whatever urges you're getting right now are being multiplied by that. If it helps, what you're feeling isn't a reflection of yourself - it's your biology.
Ask yourself why exactly you want to be in a relationship. What's the goal? What would you guys do? I knew a guy in high school who once described his first serious relationship as "horny love," as opposed to his current and ongoing one. Is that you?
You say you're lonely often. Is a girlfriend the necessary solution to this? Or is she just
a solution of many? If you're looking for a girlfriend, I won't tell you you're wrong to do it, but you should at least recognize that it's not the only way to solve your problem.
One of my main issues as to why I've been feeling really low recently as well, was getting forgeted over. 3 weeks back I got tinder, matched with a small amount of people but one girl stood out the most, she was really attractive. We had a lot in common but one day I told her my actual age (16) and she told me that "This is illegal" even though she's 18, we're only 2 years apart and quiet frankly I've gone out with a girl who was 2 years younger than me when I was 15 (we didn't do anything illegal, we only kissed) when she told me that it was "illegal" that I was 16 and she was 18 she just gave me her phone number out of the blue but then after an hour ignored my messages. It was only recently that I contacted her mainly because of one big problem that I've never faced before. A few days back I had a dream about her out of nowhere and we were cuddling in a high rise apartment but there was something both pulling me towards her but also pulling me away from her. Trying to figure out what was going on I woke up even though I wanted to know why this had happened, when I woke up I had to catch my breath and was just shocked to stuff. I contacted her a day later since I noticed she was liking my recently uploaded pics on instagram quicker than usual. I asked her what was so wrong about going out with someone two years of age, she told me she didn't know and I asked her I wanted to know why. She then told me age doesn't matter then I asked her why it mattered to her two weeks back and all she said was "Tbh I'd like to get to know you" "can we leave it at that?" I just responded saying "I'd like to get to know you too" "Properly and maturely" she responded saying "That would be really nice" but I feel that things are just awkward now
Serves me right for trying to respond to a topic as I read it, haha. You say things are awkward. Are they? How so? Make certain you aren't just sabotaging yourself here. Maybe you think things are awkward, but that doesn't mean she thinks so. That said, I'm just basing that on the very brief dialogue you've posted. You probably know better than me.