I'm gonna share with you my personal break-up story, so let's get into it. When I was in the 10th grade I met this beautiful girl named Nicky and I remember she had long brown hair, dark brown eyes, she had one of the warmest smiles that you could ever imagine.
She was the whole package, she was smart, athletic, funny and the only reason why I was even talking to her in the first place was that she was my brother's girlfriend's best friend.
And I didn't make a move on her at that time because I had no self-esteem or confidence. So I just placed myself in the friend zone. I remember during that first month of school so many guys wanted her but I remember two guys in particular who liked her. And they were the captains of both the rugby team and the rowing team.
And after she got to know them she eventually ended up choosing the captain of the rowing team. And this guy was tall, he was a senior, he had blonde hair and blue eyes.
He was a stereotypical good-looking guy. And during their relationship, Nicky and I became better and better friends and she would tell me all the things that she didn't like about Mr. Blue Eyes.
Like how he wasn't very caring, he wasn't that funny and he just wasn't that great of a guy overall. And he also really didn't like how much she was talking to me, which I honestly don't blame him for,
I was playing that stereotypical guy friend who, you know, obviously secretly liked her. But after a couple of months the novelty of Mr. Blue Eyes wore off, and she broke up with him. And throughout this time she and I became closer and closer but just as friends.
And I usually don't like the fairytale stories like in movies where the shy friend somehow ends up with the attractive girl, but the more time we spent together the more we both started to care for one another.
And eventually, she started to get feelings for me, so I somehow someway got out of the friend zone. But despite the very obvious signs of attraction that she was giving off I still was a very unconfident kid and I simply was not able to make a move on her.
I didn't even know what making a move entailed at that time. So she was the one who ended up making a move on me and this move took place on December 31st of 2009 over MSN Messenger. "Mitch, I have something to tell you." "What is it?" "I cannot tell you over messenger." "Uh, yes you can, just type it in." "It's three words." "Is it, I love you?" "It's I love you, and I have for a long time."
And that is how we started dating, over MSN Messenger in 2009. And the next day we met up and we went on our first official date. And from that day forward we were inseparable.
And for the next three years we shared a lot of experiences, we supported each other as competitive athletes, we were there for each other when tragedy struck, we had a lot of first times together, and we would even talk about our futures.
Like, we would sit there and talk about marriage, kids, living together, and it all just way too intense for a high-school relationship. Nicky was also a very talented rower and she was offered many full-ride scholarships to go to schools in the United States, which was kind of a problem for us because I was planning on going to school in Canada.
And I remember at one point she actually offered to stay in Victoria for our relationship and to go to school with me, and as much as I did want this I knew she didn't want that.
So I encouraged her to go away because I knew that is what was best for her.
And it's now at this point in the story where things start to get a little interesting and much, much juicier.
Just before summer began, she committed to going to school in the United States which meant we were about to embark on a long-distance relationship.
And something that I need to mention is that Nicky had this friend who was also a rower and his name was Liam. And Liam kind of played a similar role as I did at the beginning of the story, as being in the friend zone.
But the difference between him and I was that Liam would try to actively break us apart because he was really into her and he didn't like me. So when Liam found out about us trying to do long-distance he saw that as an opportunity to pounce on our relationship.
And the reason why I know this is because I did something that I'm not proud of and it's something that I'm pretty hesitant to even bring up because, you know, it's pretty embarrassing.
But I guess this is me just being 100% transparent with you guys. So, this is what happened. One day, Nicky and I were sitting beside each other on my bed and I see that her phone was buzzing a lot.
And I look over at it and I saw all these long paragraphs. So I say to her, "Jeez, who's writing, like, this "long essay to you?" And she says, "Oh, nothing, it's just growing stuff."
And she quickly puts the phone away but as she was doing that I could see that the messages were from Liam. And then once she put her phone away she started to act weird and distant and quiet.
And I had known her for long enough to know when something was wrong, and something was wrong and she wouldn't tell me what it is.
When Nicky left my house I did something very shameful and I logged onto her Facebook account to see what was going on. And this is when something crazy happened.
Keep in mind, this is in 2011 and Facebook was still kind of new, and there were still a few bugs on the website. When I logged onto her Facebook account she was also logged in and I could see that she was in the middle of a conversation with Liam.
But the weird part was that I could see everything that she was doing. So, imagine you are watching a Livestream of your girlfriend on Facebook and you could see who she's writing with, you could see where she's clicking.
You could see absolutely everything. But before I could see what they were writing she clicks out of the conversation, goes to the chat history of her messages with Liam, and deletes the entire conversation.
And then 10 minutes later I get a text from Nicky saying, "I need to talk to you about something, "are you free tomorrow?"
And when I read that text my heart sank, it was like my sixth sense was telling me that something really bad was about to happen. I said, "Okay, meet me at 11 a.m."
So the next day comes around and I'm sitting on the bench at my park waiting for her, and I was just trying to prepare myself for the worst, and then all of a sudden I see her car pull up and the moment she got out of the car and made eye-contact with me she bursts into tears.
Like, I'm talking, tears are rolling down her face. Her face is swollen and then she runs up to me and gives me a big hug and neither of us said anything for a long time.
So after we both had calmed down a bit I asked her what was going on. And she told me that she had come to break up with me and now that she was there with me she couldn't do it.
And she said to me that she wasn't even sure even if she wanted to do it, which made it even more clear that certain people, or a certain someone, was convincing her to do it. I'm not gonna go into too much detail about our conversation but the result was Nicky not knowing what she wanted and we both were just really confused.
After a few days of talking, we ended up deciding to stay together and to try long-distance. But after that day at that park, something really interesting happened to me. When she told me that she was thinking of breaking up with me, the thought of a future that didn't involve her was planted inside my brain.
And over the next few months that seed started to grow. Back then, I had this huge fear of losing Nicky and being alone, we both had relied so much on each other for our positive emotions, like love and happiness, and I think we both were really scared that we wouldn't be able to find someone better if we broke up, and this was especially a problem for me.
But when my fear of being alone and losing her became a reality I realized that it wasn't as bad as I thought.
Now, of course, I was still really upset and sad and probably borderline depressed at this time. But I was still alive and breathing, and I think a lot of people today are scared that they're not going to be able to go on and live their life if they lose a certain person.
Most people today get into relationships based on fear. We fear the thought of being alone or we fear the thought of being 40 years old and being that weird, older person at that bar still looking for love. And we fear this so much that most of us end up settling for someone who we may not even be the right match for, or maybe we'll get to the arbitrary age of, say, 30 and then we decide it's time to get married.
And we just stay with the person we are with at that time because it's convenient.
If you are not experiencing happiness, love, and self-worth from just being by yourself then finding a partner is not going to solve this. It could give you temporary happiness, maybe even as long as five or ten years, but those toxic, dependent roots will remain inside you.
So if you're still watching this, ask yourself, why do I want a relationship Or if you're already with someone ask yourself, why am I with this person And be honest with yourself, because I do believe you can't have a great relationship if it's based around fear.