Page 34 - #LoveWarrior

quickly remembered that men bond in activity, meaning, even though we were strangers, a connection was made.
I’m sure the fact that we were strangers added a sense of safety to the conversation as the likelihood of us seeing one
another again was very slim.

Now halfway through the hike and a way to go before we got to the three waterfalls, this stranger and I began to
converse on the very complicated world of relationships. Still very much in love with his ex-fiancé, he was doing
everything he could to let go. Six months since their failed engagement, he had done well in acknowledging the loss
of the relationship but was struggling with what to do now. “I find myself being aware of her absence (which took
months in itself) but now I’m having a hard time accepting that it was the right choice. I know we care about one
another a lot and want the best for the other, I just wished that meant being together. The way we communicate —
and love one another, for that matter — seems to be so...inefficient.” That statement stopped me in my tracks. It was
so powerful. As I continued to listen, taking a drink from my water bottle, he continued, “I know that sounds like no
surprise coming from a guy, but it’s the truth. We met when we were young, which meant we were both making
things up as we went, and that worked for a while. But, then years went by and a few deployments made things
tough. I was always grateful she stood by my side. Now, here I am, unaware of when things really fell apart and all I
can come up with is I must not have communicated enough to her how much she means to me.”

Maybe it was my hopeless romantic side or the pain in his voice, either way, I found myself acting as their
relationship cheerleader. I built on what he had already shared, giving an inside perspective of a woman’s heart in
cases like his. At the trails end, he went his way and I went my way.

Number Three
A colleague and I had finished setting up an event when we realized we were over an hour ahead of schedule. Both
not willing to leave the event site, we conversed over our packed lunches. Somewhere between Caesar salad and
spaghetti, relationship failures came up. A man known to have a great sense of humor, our lunch break quickly
turned in to a relationship version of America’s Funniest Home Videos. Halfway through his video-wheel, having
listened for longer than my personality could normally, I decided to throw in a curve ball and ask him a question.
With a fading giggle and a bigger than life smile, I asked, “So, the story that changed your course, what did that one
look like?” He laughed and said, “what do you mean?” “Oh, come on, “I said, “we all have that one story that
altered the way we look at relationships.” “Well, clearly you do” He responded. Continuing the playful mood, I said,
“well of course. I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours?” Feeling as if we were back in grade school, he agreed to tell
me about “Emily.” Knowing that we would run out of time to go over my story, I probed him to go first. As he told
me about Emily, I noticed his descriptions of their story were well-thought out and thoroughly analyzed. With that
being said, to my surprise Emily wasn’t a girlfriend from years ago, she was a girlfriend from just a few months ago.

Emily, a few years older than him, was not a foreigner to relationships. Something not also true for him, quickly
became the first of many complaints those in her life would have. “Her mom had an opinion, her best friend has an
opinion, her work friends had opinions, even her therapist had an opinion. And you know what they all had in
common? That we weren’t right for one another. I’m assuming they each witnessed a different challenge we faced in
our relationship and made their judgements from there. Either way, it got to her. They weren’t a group of silent
influencers in her life, meaning they openly told her what they thought of our relationship, even if she didn’t ask. I
started to notice her attitude toward me change. Each interaction she had with them meant the level of intimacy we
shared dwindled.”

Attempting to understand further, I asked, “what issues do you think they had with your relationship?” Taking a
moment to slurp down a strand of spaghetti, he thought about that question too. It was as if I had pressed pause on a
remote. Then, once he finished, it was “play” again. “Emily is someone who has always known what she wanted out
of life. Motivated, hard-working and intentional in her environments. She’s been on the fast-track to achieve her
goals for years now. I suppose they saw me as a distraction.” “But all of them?” I rebuttaled. “Well her mom saw
her less than she wanted while we were together, her best friend felt we were just too different, her work friends
didn’t like that she went to less work parties while she was with me and her therapist loved to label people giving
me two – egotistical and narcissist.” “Wow, that’s a lot of different people rooting against you as a couple” I said
with a shocked expression. “You aren’t kidding, but hey that’s life, it’s not fair.” Trying to lighten the mood before

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