what may or may not be hard reality

YES! OMG, you said it so well. I recognize everything you said, but I never actually analysed it that far. But yes! Rollie really is the sweetest guy, he really is the strongest one of them all. I just hope he doesn't keep too much of his upset from Jen, because their separation isn't something he should be going through alone. It's gonna be interesting to see how he and Jen finally got together, and see what happened to Jen and Ted. (Darn! I was supposed to be all about the femslash, and not actually care enough about the characters so their storylines would distract me from the femslash. But they're pretty good at this.)

Did you watch Men in Trees? Because the actor who plays Rollie played the sweetest guy on there too. His and Jane's was definitely the most interesting relationship on that show.