Starting over

I couldn't stand having that depressing post on top anymore, so I'm making a new one. This one is only mildly depressing.

I'm not really feeling better yet. Or rather, I'm feeling a lot better, but still not good. Over the weekend things got a lot worse before they started getting better. Mike and I had another long talk but just kept going around in circles, and I didn't feel any better when all was said and done. I spent a pathetically large portion of the weekend curled up and crying, or, alternately, screaming "FUCK" and punching my bed as hard as possible.
I've moved beyond the deepest sadness and actually made it through today without crying (well, without crying until just now when I checked stupid Myspace and discovered his profile says "In a Relationship." Once it's on Myspace you know it's real. But only crying once today is a vast improvement). Now more than anything I'm just mad, although I know that will go away in time, too.
Mostly now I'm just wondering about this: Why is it that whenever guys leave me, I always get this speech: "You're my best friend, you're my logic, you know me better than any girl in the world, I love you so much, I never want to lose you, but I can't be with you right now because (fill in the blank with: you're too far away/I'm not good enough for you/whatever)". That's all nice, and probably all true, but that doesn't make it any easier. If anything, it makes it harder because I can't understand how a guy can give me up when he claims to love me and need me so much. I could never willingly give up someone I loved and respected half as much as these guys claim to love me. It's just crazy to me that this is the second time in a year that I've gotten more or less the same speech from different people. Only in the situation last spring I didn't really believe it. But in this current case I do.
That's what is so frustrating and sad about it.
What's good about it is this: if I can love Mike this much, and he can love me as much as he has, and it turns out he's not even the one for me, imagine how much love and respect there will be between me and the guy that ultimately ends up being the perfect match for me. Because I can't imagine loving anyone more than I love Mike, fitting with anyone better than I fit with him, but clearly he has found a better option than me. If he has found that, then obviously I can, too. And imagine how much love there will be when I find that. It will be unbelievable.
So that's what I'm doing now, I guess. I'm completely single and searching (but not too hard, 'cause we all know you don't find these relationships, they find you). I'm opened to any new possibilities. I hope that one of these days I'll find the one person that will love me so much that from the moment we find each other neither one of us will want to do anything to risk losing the other.
I'm trying to convince myself that until I find that person, good things will happen. I am starting a career that could be really successful if I put my mind to it and don't get distracted by idiot guys. I have good friends, and a wonderful family that can keep me entertained. I can work on staying healthy and getting into even better shape. If I'm not tied down in a relationship it opens up a lot more opportunities for things like travelling and potential career moves. I guess for a while longer I'll just keep being selfish, worrying about me and only me.
It just sucks that to get to all those new potential opportunities I have to go through so much pain first.

Here's the other thing that I'm grappling with: Mike doesn't want me to stop talking to him. He (stupidly) believes that our relationship will be exactly the same as it has always been, just minus sex. What he is forgetting is that once you're in a strong, stable relationship, you give all of your best to that person. For the next few weeks, sure, Mike and I will continue chatting every day like the best friends we are. But he'll get more into his relationship, and soon all the things he would have told me he'll be telling her. And that's only fair, that's how it should be. I'd never want to be in a relationship with a guy knowing that he was sharing all of the emotional stuff he shares with me with another girl. So eventually we'll talk less and less, and I'll get less and less of him as she gets more and more. She'll get all the best of him, and I'll be left with the casual acquaintance friendship. We'll talk once a week, maybe. There's just no way you can possibly be best friends with two people at once, and if your relationship is good your best friend should be the person you're in the relationship with. That's just how it is.
For Mike, it's win-win situation. He gets a girlfriend, and then he gets all the friendship he wants from me. Meanwhile, it's a lose-lose situation for me, because currently I'm in a relationship with no one, and I don't get everything I want from Mike. I don't even get half of what I'd truly like from him.
And then there's the added factor that even if this relationship he's in doesn't work out, it's not like he and I can just pick up right where we left off. I've already been hurt. In the ending of their relationship, more people will be hurt. Now, in order for Mike and I to ever be together again, people are going to have to get hurt.
In short, the odds of us being together again are, in my mind, slim. Unless this new relationship of his ends abrubtly like, tomorrow, the chances of he and I getting together again are very small. The odds of us maintaining the awesome friendship we had as a couple and then all along as we've been more or less single are also slim.
He thinks I'm being melodramatic and thinking too big, and maybe I am. But I understand the fundamental truth that what we had has been completely lost and we can't be together again without a lot of baggage. Could we get beyond that? Yes, if it turns out we were really meant to be.
But all of this has me facing the stark realization that no, we're probably not meant to be.

So yeah, I'm starting all the way over. What I'm trying to decide now is whether or not that should involve not talking to Mike anymore. First I wanted to stop talking to him for petty reasons: why should I give him what he wants when he has hurt me so badly? He shouldn't have the satisfaction of being able to have a girlfriend and also talk to me every day just like old times. Now, I'm just wondering if we should stop talking for practical reasons. How am I supposed to get over him and really move on if we're still talking every day and if somewhere, deep down, I still have hope for all of this? The thing is, the question is not that easy, because part of me thinks it would be stupid to give up the entire friendship. Is the friendship worth keeping, for nostalgia's sake if nothing else? After all, he has been one of my best friends for over five years now, I'd hate to throw all of that away just because I'm angry. But like I said, do you think I'll be able to really get over him if we're still talking all the time?

So I don't know about that. I'm soliciting opinions, if you want to give them. Just please don't call me on the phone to talk about it. I love my friends who are reading this and I appreciate everyone who has been trying to make me feel better, but I just hate talking about this stuff in real life and real time. Right now all I know is that I'm going to attempt this "we're just best friends" stuff for the next month or so, and then I'll reasses the situation. That seems logical, I guess.

Tomorrow is day one of single me. If I were me in guy form, I'd start dating me right away. After all, who doesn't want a girl who is smart, sane and reasonable*, pretty, good in bed, who cooks (okay, still working on that one, but more or less), doesn't expect (or WANT) to be spoiled, and who has a great sense of humor, a love of adventure and a very high tolerance for hours of videogame playing? I'll even let you flirt with other girls at the bar as long as there's no doubt in my mind that you're going home with me.

*Please don't take the last few days as signs of my sanity. Nobody's sanity should be judged just after they have been hurt. I'm pretty raw right now. Give me a couple of days and I'll be back to my calm, cool, rational self. I am a rock. I am an island, etc.