I'm gonna' have to go with...my divorce.
Yeah. Being as I am one of the seven men in the world that actually gets all worked up and excited over the idea of monogamy, getting the boot from (and consequently having to give the boot to) my wife was a pretty horrible, long period of my life. The fact that I dealt with it at all is something that my friends are largely responsible for, but they can't fix you. You have to. They just serve as a marvelous and genuinely concerned distraction. That genuine concern is a beautiful thing in an instance such as yours, because it means that even if their answer is "no" to something, at least it's a "no" with a fleshed out explanation that doesn't make you feel so completely disposable.
But like I said. That's just a small part of it. In the end, you need to feel that after months or years of preparation, effort and expectation that are all pulled away in an instant, you still have some ground to stand on. Right?
Or do you? The funny thing about standing on the ground is this: there exactly two kinds of things in this world that don't stand on it. Some are falling objects, and that's what we fear being. The alternative though, is creatures that can fly. Believe it or not, you can fit into the latter category.
See, you only have so much time or energy to spend on any and everything, period. Every second of every day, we make decisions on where and how to spend that time and energy, and whatever we choose excludes everything else we could be up to. When you come across a situation like yours where the focal point of so much time and energy--the very bedrock of your daily efforts--just goes away, it leaves a pretty huge gap in your schedule...that you can fill with anything you want, by moving in any direction you want. That ground pulled out from under you was a limiting factor, no matter how comforting it might have been beneath you.
You're on this website, so I'll start with the obvious. While you were getting your woo on, did you miss out on some good gaming? PLAY. See a book on the stand that piqued your interest? READ IT. Have a really nifty idea that you'd like to see on a stand? WRITE IT. Hang out with your buddies. Tell your folks you love 'em. Hike the Appalachian trail. Whatever! The simple fact of the matter is that even though it would have been nice for you to get on this forum and say "I have a relationship, because I worked at it and had just enough luck for the rest to fall into place," that didn't happen. Still, you can come back here later and say "I (fill in the blank)ed as hard as I could" and that should be just as important. If the girl had said yes, she could still have been hit by a bus ten minutes later, and that would leave you right back here, wondering what to do with your thoughts, affections, wants and works. I'm not saying just go out and do anything to distract yourself, I'm saying go out and do exactly what you would have done if you'd never met this girl in the first place, then come let us know what it is. For all you know, there's a hundred people that'll read this today and need a good idea.
It might not get you the girl, but it certainly makes life move that much more quickly.
