Ry, I admire you for knowing now is the time focus on yourself and working on your issues. This really is the key for most of us. Until we get to where we have greater self understanding or healing or have learned what we need to learn, we tend to make the same mistakes over and over. It is called being human. I see this woman as both pushing you away and also reeling you in. When people do this to their lovers or friends, it tends to make me think something just isn’t right with that person. So we want it, it is flattering and makes us feel lovable and worthy with the person who reels us in and then we are so very hurt when they push us away. Maybe we even think we need another person to complete us but this old movie phrase is nonsense.  This makes us very unhappy because who wants to be pushed away once one is reeled in. No matter what, she has made it clear you are not the one romantically for her but she is happy to have you as “back up” or to “use” when she is lonely. You live in a tiny town and maybe this gives you the opportunity to step away from romance, as you said. This is very wise of you. When we fix our own issues, we will attract someone we can have a successful relationship with. It is hard to resist the pushing when our relationships are pushing us for more because it makes us feel good about us. But in the long run, sometimes we have to be pragmatic. I have a female friend like this and I finally decided last month to stop chasing the relationship because it is truly I push and she pulls away. Like you, I get the impression from what she says that my friend has friends she likes better, which is her right and all I can do is accept. For me, and for you perhaps, once we stop focusing on that which isn’t right for us, we can focus on other things. As long as we are tied to someone like this, doing the pushing and pulling routine, our minds are occupied. A potential new friend could walk into the room but we are not paying attention because our mind is on the difficult or unhappy relationship. If the relationship causes emotional pain, it isn’t right. We can’t fix other people, and you have tried your best. I do admire your willing to keep working on yourself. This is all we can do as perfection can’t be attained.