A Pattern Repeated?

Heavy and weighed down was how she felt that morning. The lightness and ready smile that had been with her for the past few months was gone, and as a result she had to make a conscious effort to sit upright instead of slumping in her chair as she went through her usual amount of emails and other online activities.

It had happened again. Yes, yet again.
And she thought of the pattern that had been repeated before, too many times before.

First, there had been S. from C. He had obviously been proud and pleased to be her first man. It was something that mattered to men of his provenance even more than to others, and inexperienced as she had been back then, as well as not having any self-confidence to speak of, it had only seemed natural to her to assume that this was how things were supposed to be in a relationship.
After only a few years, she had to wake up to the fact that she was not, and was never going to be, the most important thing in his life. That place was already taken, by something as banal as TV.

It made her look for attention and confirmation elsewhere, and she found both with D. from B., until he found someone who was closer and "available", as he put it.
After D., there was G., very young, very strong, 2 m tall and a waterball player, who immediately told his actual girlfriend what had happened, so consumed by guilt he was.

S. from W. knew all about her, because she made sure he was not going to start anything with her being under a wrong impression. To her own surprise, he was not put off by her confession, but was even ready to leave his home country and move in with her. A bigger and much less pleasant surprise was to find out that he was an alcoholic, and once again she had to accept the truth, that there was something else that mattered a lot more than herself.

Her self-confidence at an all-time low, she spent a magic night with A., who never made it a secret that he was already in a relationship. Well, so was she, but she still had not expected him to retreat so completely from her.

Another rejection on her ever-growing list, she gave up on the idea of ever finding someone to whom she would matter, and a short series of equally short relationships followed, both of which she started and ended in the full knowledge of their unsuitability.

Then, during a particularly difficult period at home, she was so angry and sad that she finally confided in a friend.

Their friendship grew closer by this, and her friend was of enormous help, not only in dealing with the current situation, but also in her finding her way to self-acceptance and self-confidence.

Until something happened that made her friend retreat.
And she feared the recurrence of the old pattern of rejection.

But then she tought again, and found that, this time, there was no relation to the former pattern. This was different.
It was not her, and not her fault.
She understood, and in spite of the heaviness she felt momentarily, she knew that she would feel well again, and maybe not lose her friend entirely.