please comment on my loss

Please annotate my game. I really wanted to win this, and I didn't know how to defend against the doubling of my opponent's Q and B on the a8 h1 diagonal. Also, I didn't know what to make of my opponent's opening, which looked like a French but then with 2. d6 it was clearly not a French. I am a relative beginner so please suggest what I could have done differently. 

What's up with not taking the f6 knight?

I never noticed it until you pointed it out. My queen had been attacked, and I was concerned about her safety, and then about the b file and completely overlooked that f6 knight. thanks. any more?

You decided your queen was in the wrong place so you moved her again?

Why did you think your queen was in the wrong place and why did you think d3 was a better place?

You need to think about questions like this.  It is very bad to lose a tempo moving your queen from d2 to d3 unless you have a very good reason.

Actually your queen on d2 was a better place than being on d3 as on d3 your queen was more exposed to attack.

to protect the e pawn better to play Bd3 [which is probably where you should have placed your bishop in the first place. The role of a queen should not be to protect a pawn--the queen is to valuable for that.

Bd3 rather than Be2 hits at his weak g6 and h7 squares and also later after you 0-0 you might put a rook on e1 which would not be obstructed by a bishop on e2.

17. Qxc4  what diagonals were you protecting? and why let Black tempo off your queen?  In this game you had problems with what to do with your queen. 

In general in the opening [there are exceptions] your queen is one of the later pieces to be developed and when developed it should not be in a spot easily attacked and the queen should not be used to protect a pawn.

[if possible]

thank you ponz111. You not only provided me with direction, you also anticipated and then answered the next question I was going to ask you, i.e. how to protect that e pawn. thank you, and thanks to qablo for the detailed feedback. 

no, I understand, people have thoughts, and then they have new thoughts. His multiple posts mean that he thought about my problem in several waves. I'm very cool with multiple helpful posts. 

14. Bd1 is a waste of time and accomplishes nothing. You would do better to develop all your pieces and get castled before moving pieces a second time, unless there is a tactic that justifies the move.

On move 23, you retreated the bishop to prevent doubled pawns. Material is usually more important than positional factors such as doubled pawns. In this case, the opponent is immediately threatening to play ...Nxd2 if you retreat the bishop, when either way you recapture results in the immediate loss of a pawn (recapture with the knight and lose the g2-pawn, or recapture with the queen and lose the pawn after ...Bxf3 gxf3 Qxf3, as in the game).

On move 25, you could have just played Nxh4 followed by f3. When you're being attacked and there's an easy out like that which solves all your problems, think twice before continuing to defend. If you can move a piece or exchange it off, that's often a better idea than defending and allowing your opponent to increase his attack.

yes, by 'controlling the diagonals' I meant I wanted my queen to have access to more squares. And, yes, I see now what you mean by letting black 'tempo off my queen'. Very helpful. A new way of looking. 

yes, yes, you've put your finger on a situation I find myself in a lot. I continue defending, feel like I'm digging my heels in, like trench warfare, but the more I get dug in the more withering the attack from the opponent becomes, and I have increasingly less mobility. I need to look for active solutions, rather than passive delaying tactics. What you write is very perceptive and relevant to my experience of responding to attacks. 

and yes, I see the 25. Nxh4  followed by f3 benefit now. I sometimes try to save material, and don't see that the approach I'm taking is actually the worse, more dangerous approach, than the one I'm trying to avoid. 

4. Be2? I put a '?' thinking this is a waste of move. The reason for this move is quite weak.

1. Be2 protects Nf3. Nf3 is not threatened and is well protected.

2. Maybe for castling 0-0. But 4.Bd3 protects e4 or 4.Bc4 attacking a2-f7-g8 flank is better.

Since 4. Be2 is made. 4. ... a6 is a passive move, so we can continue with the original plan:

5. 0-0 Castling. or

5.c4 with the plan of attacking the weak f7 pawn.

bean_Fischer, can you explain why 4.Be2 makes ...a6 a passive move? I never understand those kinds of connections. Please explain. thank you. 

If you watch the youtube video here 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dKCK8SRUKU

by Igor Smirnov, it kind of touches on what you mentioned before, OP.

You don't want to be trying to weather a storm, you want to be pushing your own agenda and advancing your own plans. This means you need to have an idea of what your own plan actually is. Making a plan and executing it means finding out weaknesses in your opponent's camp and exploiting them. You pointed out that you were ahead on development and that your opponent made lots of pawn moves. I'm going to go back to page 1 and see what his weaknesses might be.

Your annotation is the reason. You said: "at this point I thought 'I way ahead in development. I can't believe that my opponent is just moving pawns".

Well, a6 is a passive move atm, except when b5 is made. It doesn't attack anything and it is on the very far side of the board, hence it will be awhile before it comes into play.

Okay, so if you've heard of the rule Knights before Bishops, I'm not sure Bf4 is a great move for you because it's not clear that f4 is a good square for the Bishop. Instead you could have played Nc3 to take control of the middle and see if your opponent will continue to play pawn moves. 

Here's how you could have perhaps undermined his silly pawn pushing plans from the start.

What you find is that you can exploit his lack of development to further develop your own pieces and leave him way behind while gaining an ideal position for yourself.