Naturally, Ryan was hardly delighted to find herself cast as the villain -- one of them, anyway -- in an out-of-control media soap opera. "I definitely have moments of wanting to straighten it all out and tell everyone what really went down," she told Harper's Bazaar last January. "But, you know, who would I be proving anything to?"

In fact, by last week, when Ryan and Jack were traipsing through Thailand -- where the only available males she encountered were the elephants in a TV documentary she was making -- proving her sense of balance on a mischievous 4-ton beast seemed her only concern. Sitting bareback on the neck of a 28-year-old female named Sao Yai, Ryan was "a little scared," says conservationist and guide Lek Chailert, when the elephant dipped down into a deep river sending water rushing around Ryan's knees. "But then she just laughed," she adds. "Sao Yai is very humorous. She was joking with Meg." And earlier this year, in Los Angeles and in Manhattan, where Ryan stayed in her three-bedroom Fifth Avenue apartment while shooting the romantic comedy Kate & Leopold this spring, the actress seemed bent on proving nothing at all. Says a neighbor in her building: "We see her all the time, in the lobby getting her mail, waiting for the elevator. She's very friendly and approachable. She goes shopping at the supermarket and carries her bags home by herself. She stands in line for coffee. She stands in line for take-out food. The doormen all adore her. She's adorable."

And content, apparently, being Single in the City. "She is coming from a very strong, positive place," says costume designer Donna Zakowska, who befriended Ryan while working on Leopold. "For some people, seeing her transition into being single could be a negative thing. But she is not looking at it that way. Now is the moment for her to define herself as a solo person before she goes into her next relationship."