I've been both the shy creative guy and the "muscly douche" in the past, and I've caused couples to break up, and gotten broken up with... so I guess I could say that I've seen both sides of this, squared.
Girls/Women are complicated. In highschool I was all of about 165 pounds, had long hair, read alot, and was always writing music/songs, etc. I ended up having a prolonged affair with a nineteen year old girl who had a member of the football team as her steady boyfriend. She couldn't get everything she wanted from either of us, so she had us both. I knew it, the other guy didn't, until later. That went bad, of course, because by the time he found out, I was in a steady relationship with someone else, and he made it his mission to get her to open up for him.
Later, I was the well built martial arts jerk. You know the type, the guy who throws a blinding fast punch at someone's face when they first meet, just to see if the person flinches. This girl who was a couple years younger then I completely flipped out over meeting me. She gave up on a guy she'd been with for almost four years. Of course, she couldn't decide either. Once we stopped just being an affair, and started being a couple, I changed into less of the intense presence than I had been and more of a nurturing, well, whatever you want to call it. At the same time, her nerdy ex started putting on a death metal act, dressing in black, Satanism, the whole works. He even threatened to kill himself a couple of times, and her family had to take a restraining order out on him. Eventually, she went back to him.
Men and women are very different. Men know what we want, even if it isn't quite what we need. Women want a lot of things, sometimes all at once.
Pouring any of your energy into someone who doesn't want what you want is a waste. I've tried the "stay friends" and the "clean break" approaches to breakups, and the clean break is the way to go. I stayed close with one girl who broke my heart. After something like five years she finally apologized to me about what happened, and it seemed like we'd become real friends again. Of course, I eventually realized that we were having an emotional affair, or something, or she was just trying to back burner me and keep her options open. I became the first number she called any time she had an argument with the guy. I actually outlasted him, and a couple of others, but once she got into a relationship that actually seemed to give her everything she wanted, she stopped all contact. In other cases I've had exes who tried to use getting in touch with me as a way of keeping their current boyfriends in line, almost like I was the trump card for any argument. Anytime someone tries to use you, the best thing you can do is sever ties.
Personally, I've never had a real healthy friendship with anyone that I've broken up with/broke up with me.
You need to keep busy, maybe take up a new hobby, or try to find some new friends. Focus on meeting new people.
