First or Third?

If (when!) I get around to writing a book, I know I'll probably end up writing in first person. It scares me though because I hate when I read a book in first person and the main character is hardly a character at all. All the other people in the book have personalities and quirks and you get to know them, but for some reason, reading in first person eliminates that main character from your head. You replace them with yourself. And it doesn't make sense when the love interest falls in love with them because there's nothing there to love, just a voice narrating a story.

So the obvious solution would be to write in third person, but that always seems so stilted. If you have two females talking, it's a thin line between being repetitive and making things confusing. (For example, "She looked at her and knew she would never come back." Who would never come back? The first she or the second she? The alternative is, "Stacy looked at Maria and knew Maria would never come back." Which just sounds dumb. I hate using names too often. It's awkward.)