First off, sorry to hear about your breakup. At least your friend has made the situation more bearable, and it's great to hear that you're doing alright. This forum is always here for you, so don't feel bad about being absent for a while.
In regards to your input about me, I agree - I need to work on myself more. I'm tending to do the bare minimum at the moment, and I've really gotta do more. A good example is with me coming home from work. My work schedule is pretty bad: I wake up at around 4:45 AM, and get home around 5:00 PM every weekday. It's a very long time, but I get a 2-3 hour break in between most of the time, and the job itself is perfectly fine for me. The moment I come home, I'm basically done doing anything else, and look forward to bed because I'm always so tired. My motivation needs to improve, but trying to keep myself awake is hard within itself.
I've never been a fan of long-distance relationships, as I much prefer to see people in person. It's more fun and memorable that way, and the thought of seeing someone in person only once or twice a year turns me off. It's not like extended family where something like that can be considered normal; my Mom's side of the family lives a few states over in Illinois, as she was raised there since she was 10 up until she met my Dad. We visit my Mom's family every year around Christmas, sometimes more than once a year if there's an event going on that we feel is respectful to be present at.
I would never gun it right from the start and go straight to someone saying, "let's date", as that's just being desperate. Things do take time - I just have the mentality of wanting someone right away as I've been single and dateless for such a long time, and it's affecting me mentally in mostly negative ways.
