I’m sorry this is so long
She’s not helping herself at all mentally because she’ll never get over Byron because she’s still always around him and anyone can see she’s obsessed with him and in love with him. She’s setting herself up for more years of hurt by clinging onto something that will never be what she wants it to be. Byron clearly isn’t interested in her in the way she wants and she doesn’t get that if he had wanted to be with her he would of been cause he had all that time to be with her but he doesn’t want to be with her cause he’s gay he’s confirmed that but Ana clearly holds onto the hope that one day he’ll tell her he’s in love with her and wants to be her boyfriend and marry her.
That’s a very unhealthy way to live always thinking about and hoping for something that isn’t going to happen and unfortunately she doesn’t have anyone in her life who wants to be bluntly honest with her and I think Byron should be blunty honest with her in the nicest way possible that they’ll never be together cause it makes him look bad if he’s going to string her along giving her hope here and there but I’m not just blaming him cause I know Ana should have common sense to see they’re not going to be together. I know telling someone the truth can be hard and even when you tell them the truth they might not want to hear it or appreciate your honesty in that moment but I know that if someone I’m close to was to behave the way Ana does with Byron I would have to say something to them to try help them see sense cause I couldn’t stand by and be feeding into someone I care about delusions and watching them waste their time , hope and feelings on someone who isn’t ever going to reciprocate those feelings in the way they want them to and Ana is embarrassing herself obsessing over Byron.
There are some people who can do friends with benefits and neither of them catch feelings or get attached but Ana and Byron’s situation isn’t like that cause Ana likes him as more than a friend and she’s putting on an act to make it look like she’s happy for them to be just friends when she isn’t so she isn’t really getting on with her life moving on no problem cause she’s not over him. Byron has had no problem getting on with his life cause he isn’t emotionally invested and attached like she is cause he’s not in love cause like she said in her book she believed she would marry him and have kids with him and she deep down definitely still hopes for that! whether that’s because he said he wanted those things in the past to her giving her hope which isn’t fair or said it out of immaturity or maybe when she caught feelings for him she started to think about these things and imagining that life with him so now she can’t let go cause she’s hoping for that but I don’t know if it’s good for her and Byron to be in each other’s lives it sounds like a mess she’ll never move on from .
Obviously they don’t hate each other so of course they’re not going to want to stop cut each other off and not be in each other’s lives and I know it’s easier said than done to just remove someone from your life that you have no issue with but I just think Ana might spend her life using guys to distract herself and try convince herself she doesn’t want Byron but then she’s always around Byron, sleeping in the same bed with him , flirting with him , buying him expensive gifts, looking at him the way you would look at someone you are in love with and talking about him like he’s her boyfriend so how is she ever going to move on and let go if she’s still spending her time obsessed with him? she doesn’t see him as just a friend and it’s wrong for them to still be doing those things together here and there.
Part of me feels sorry for her because she’s very attached to him and she seems lost in life and nobody in her life is honest with her to help her face reality and move on but I also struggle to feel sorry for her because she chose to be in this type of situation with him, she wasn’t forced to sleep with him and do other things with him, she continued to do all these things with him even when it was clear he had no interest in being in a relationship with her but she kept hoping that something was going to happen and she still does give herself hope because I don’t think she truly has accepted nothing serious will happen between them. I’m sure Byron did say a lot of the things she’s saying he did cause he clearly got her hopes up , sleeping in the same bed with her and he was flirting with her and still does so he was encouraging it too he didn’t put a stop to it and by the time they put a stop to it she was already in love and obsessed with him.
The two of them got themselves into this complicated situation and I don’t know how they’ve continued to be friends after this because they’re definitely not on the same page no matter how much she wants to pretend she’s fine with them just being friends it’s obvious she wishes he was her boyfriend but he’s clearly the one who’s in control of the situation because when he says “I don’t want us to sleep together anymore I just want us to be friends” she agrees with what he wants acting like she’s fine with it and still clings onto him giving him her attention but then if he decided he wanted to sleep with her again and do other things with her she would be more than happy to do that with him so she’s waited around doing whatever he wants so it’s a never ending cycle cause she’ll settle for anything with him just so she can feel like she’s special to him even when she’s not getting the relationship she wants with him.
I know it’s their choice what they do but I don’t understand how that can be a healthy friendship or how she’s ever going to move on. I still believe the reason her and her ex of like 2 months didn’t work out is because she probably thought to herself “He isn’t Byron” cause she compares every guy to Byron and always will and probably prefers to say single cause she’s desperately waiting for Byron to wake up one day and want her. Many people have experienced a situation/relationship were it’s been hard to get over someone who you can’t be with but the difference is Ana isn’t taking the steps she needs to move on but other people are taking the steps to move on , they no longer spend time with that person , they are not still sleeping in the same bed and kissing them cause they’re actually doing the work they need to heal , giving themselves the space to not let their lives revolve around a guy who isn’t interested in them cause that’s the only way to break that unhealthy attachment to that person.