My Reality by Melissa Rycroft

Stefani would always invite this guy along for me. So every weekend, it would be Stefani and Joe, Reagan and Sean, and then me and this random guy from Stefani’s church. Talk aboutawkward! He was attractive. He was great. I wanted to like him. I really did. But my heart just wasn’t in it. I knew I had already met the guy I wanted to be with. He just didn’t want to be with me as much as I wanted to be with him.
    They were good friends, though, and they were determined and willing to try anything to make me happy. They just wanted to see me smile again. More than once, when I was out to dinner with the four of them, and our waiter happened to be young and attractive, Stefani or Reagan would egg him on.
    “Don’t you think she’s pretty?” they’d ask him, pointing at me.
    Oh my gosh!! Mortified!
    On the one hand, I was sitting there feeling totally embarrassed and pathetic. On the other hand, their positive reinforcement gave me the kind of attention I needed right then; that little something from a guy that said maybe I was worth wanting. My self-esteem was so low that it really helped to realize that if a guy could think I was pretty in a tank top with my hair in a ponytail, then maybe there was still hope for me. My friends might have been trying to embarrass me into another relationship; maybe they figured if they humiliated me enough, I’d give up and give in. But I guess I proved to be too stubborn for that strategy!
    Despite the machinations of my friends, I didn’t go on even one date that whole summer. I was still caught up in Tye, and I’ve always HATED dating. The idea of dating had never seemed fun to me, even when I wasn’t a complete emotional wreck. I could never stand how awkward first dates were. And now, all I did was compare all other guys to Tye. In my mind and heart, Tye had everything that I wanted in a partner and no one else could measure up. He talked about his nephews and niece all the time, so I knew he was family oriented. He had always wanted to open his own insurance agency, and was doingall he could to make that happen, so I knew he was ambitious. He was funny and always made me laugh. He was a lot of fun to be around because he didn’t take things too seriously (me being one of those things, unfortunately), and we always had a great time together. And of course I thought he was gorgeous—that helped!
    Stefani and Reagan knew me well enough to understand that they shouldn’t push me too hard to date other guys. But they were getting fed up with me. The two of them would roll their eyes whenever I talked about whatever latest thing Tye had done, bad or good. Just hearing his name was enough to make them crazy.
    One day I was over at Stefani’s house, and she finally snapped.
    “I don’t want to hear about it anymore,” she said. “I’m your best friend, and I’m here for you, but if you’re going to keep doing this to yourself, you can’t keep running to me when he breaks your heart again. Because we do this every week.”
    I couldn’t blame her for reacting that way. I understood why she and Reagan were tired of listening to me whine and moan. Heck, I was tired of whining and moaning. Despite Stefani’s words, I knew that she’d still be there to pick up my pieces and listen to me cry when I needed her to, because that’s what great friends do. But the whole situation had become almost as emotionally draining for her as it was for me.
    And then, I got frustrated, too. It dawned on me that, sometime during the breakup, I had not only lost my motivation to meet someone else, I had also lost my motivation in pretty much every other area of my life. I didn’t know if it was because I wasn’t challenged by my job, and I didn’t have any extracurricular activities I was passionate about, or whether it was because my personal life was a complete mess. I just knew that I felt completely paralyzed.
    I was at a crossroads emotionally, and my life was at a standstill.I