#32 Why Men ALWAYS Come Back + Mark's Romantic Proposal

In this episode, Mark's shares the story of his first wedding anniversary and how  his unconventional international relationship came to be, including the envelope he gave her years earlier that might just be the MOST romantic story you've ever heard!

In this content topic for today, we dive into a common experience many women face: the return of exes right when you’re moving on. Why does it happen? What’s the deal with closure—and can it really come from someone else? Taylor and I break it down honestly.

If you’re dealing with past relationships, long-distance love, or wondering what healthy commitment really looks like (outside the highlight reel), this one’s for you.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction
00:34 First Wedding Anniversary
03:03 Tinder Project & Hinge Update
04:59 Why Exes Come Back
11:10 Can Closure Come From An Ex?
14:03 Can You Stay Friends With An Ex?
17:25 Mark's Proposal Story!
29:00 Want 1-1 Help? Book a call!

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 0:34 First Wedding Anniversary
• 3:03 Tinder Project & Hinge Update
• 4:59 Why Exes Come Back
• 11:10 Can Closure Come From An Ex?
• 14:03 Can You Stay Friends With An Ex?
• 17:25 Mark's Proposal Story!
• 29:00 Want 1-1 Help? Book a call!

Transcript

[Speaker 1]
The Ghosts of Boyfriends Past and My Wedding Story on My Wedding Anniversary. That's coming up next. G'day and welcome to The Tinder Project, the podcast where a straight Aussie man attempts to survive 365 days dating online as an American woman.

I'm your host, Mark Rosenfeld, Australia's Dating Coach for Women. I'm here with my sidekick, self-love coach, Teal Elizabeth. And together, we have one mission to make meeting good men fun and easy for you.

Let's give it a bell. Hey, Teal.

[Speaker 2]
Hi, Mark. How are you doing today?

[Speaker 1]
I'm good. It's my wedding anniversary.

[Speaker 2]
That is such a special day. Oh my gosh. How many years has it been now?

[Speaker 1]
It's my first wedding anniversary.

[Speaker 2]
What? Wait, you just got married last year? I did not know that.

I really did not know that.

[Speaker 1]
How did you not know that? I feel like we're so close now.

[Speaker 2]
I know. I know. There's so many things I still need to know about you.

[Speaker 1]
Well, it was, it was sort of, it was a bit of a weird situation because we are still kind of planning our wedding. So it seems a little, as in we're still planning our wedding now. So it seems a little odd that our wedding anniversary was a year ago.

We had our ceremony a year ago. Sam sort of came to me, not early in our relationship, but I think it was after a year or so. I mean, she said she wanted kids at the very beginning, so I knew that much.

But she came to me about a year or two in and said, look, these things are really important to me. And she basically said, getting married and being married and having kids. And she sort of described her timeline for those things.

And I looked at what she was saying and I went, I don't know if I can do both of those, but we can compromise on one. So at least in the timeframe that she wanted to do those things. So that was my compromise.

[Speaker 2]
Because when you're in your mid thirties, because you're both in your mid thirties right now, right?

[Speaker 1]
Correct.

[Speaker 2]
So it does kind of put a little bit more timeline pressure on things biologically. Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Right. And I think I've spoken to you about this before. Sometimes as Aussies, we do the kids thing first and then the commitment.

So I thought, oh yeah, maybe I'll do that. But Sam wasn't up for that. So we sort of compromised on, okay, well, the kids thing does have a timeline that does have more of a clock to it.

We'll do that and we'll have a ceremony, an official ceremony. And then the time we get all our friends and family together will be down the line. So we're hoping to do that maybe in 2026, 27.

We're not 100% sure of that yet, but that's kind of, that's future us. That's where we're going, but it is my wedding anniversary last year. So I'm going to share my wedding proposal story.

I'm sorry. Proposal story a little later in the episode, which I haven't told you this. I think you'll think it's really cute.

[Speaker 2]
I'm so excited to hear it. It's always, I mean, we're love coaches. We live for this thing, right?

[Speaker 1]
This is the fun part. Exactly. This is the part here that's really, yeah, that we're here for.

So I'm going to share that. Tinder project's going well. Quick update there.

Nothing major to report. Last week, we are niching down hard. We are on hinge actually.

So we've taken a niching experiment. We've planked it on hinge, which is higher quality of men on average. There is a little bit of a speed bump with hinge, which is hinge seems to, I don't know if they do this on purpose or if it's part of the algorithm.

I think hinge has wised up to something that I realized with clients a long time ago, that the number one reason people hate dating apps, women, women, the number one reason women hate dating apps among many is the feeling of overwhelm that comes from having too many matches. So hinge has done a number of things that have reduced that. For example, they make you do only eight chats.

They limit your swipes. They only show one thing at a time. If you're on the free plan, they've done a bunch of stuff, but they also seem to limit the likes queue because I'd switched the profile back on.

I had 60 people at the start and I've had maybe one or two a day since then. And I was getting more on some of the smaller websites. So I think hinges is doing something in the background there, which is kind of a problem because the filtering strategy relies on getting a lot, a big pool of people and really filtering it down and getting the best ones who just answer the question and follow through.

So I'm concerned we're going to run out of people in a few days, which is never a problem we've had on any other site. I'll see what comes of that and have a couple of creative ideas to get around.

[Speaker 2]
It's going to be a fish in the sea, right? Not on hinge.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, apparently not on hinge, which if you go on Tinder, you got 6,000 matches or a thousand matches or something. That would actually potentially be a decent place to apply this. I'm wondering if hinge, maybe there's not enough people, but I need to experiment a little bit more with a couple of creative strategies that I'm coming up with.

So I'll tell you a little bit about those soon.

[Speaker 2]
Cool. Yeah, that sounds good.

[Speaker 1]
Before we get onto my proposal story, though, you brought up a really interesting topic, which our clients come to us and listeners, I'm really curious if you have had this as well. I've experienced this from a girlfriend at the time. Ghosts of boyfriends past.

They return, they come back, raising from the dead like a zombie walking dead movie, something. And it's always at the time, right when something's changing for you, right when you're letting them go. It's almost like the universe is throwing you one last.

Are you really sure you don't want to come back to this? You seem to be getting away. We're going to throw you one last pot of gold to try to drag you back here.

So have you experienced this with clients and why the hell does it happen to you?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, I love getting to talk about this because it is such a thing that I- It is a thing! It is such a thing! And so any ladies that are just like, this is weird, why is this happening?

This is so strange. Like, it is a thing. And I think if anything were to just kind of like validate the fact that energy is a thing and that people feel your energy, it is this.

The ghosts of girlfriends past or boyfriends past. And you articulated it beautifully already. I just want to really normalize it as in like, yes, this is a thing.

And this is how you handle it when it comes up, right? To me, it's the universe almost like bringing everything that has been an incompletion in your life back to the surface so that you can make peace with it, get closure, find healing, find forgiveness, and move forward with a clean slate. That's how I like to internalize it.

But I do think that it is really directly related to the shifts, the internal shifts we make in our energy and the healing work that we do on ourselves. Because this happens when I'm working with women consistently. Till out of nowhere, a guy that I used to date five years ago just reached out and I have not talked to him in five years.

And now he's just like, just feeling around again. Not saying I want to marry you, but just feeling around and seeing what's going on. And I've experienced this in my life too many times with men that I never really got full closure with.

There was really something there, but something didn't work at the time. And they just pop back out of nowhere. And I think the best way I support women to move through this is obviously recognizing, okay, something didn't work for a reason.

So really making sure you know why that didn't work because it's easy to just go, oh my gosh, I love this person. Yes, let me go back to them. It's like, wait, wait, wait, let's be really objective here about this.

And two, let's not just slam the door in their face. Let's actually give them an opportunity to connect with you. And if you feel strong enough in yourself and feel like everything you've been doing to shift and build better boundaries or build more self-love or whatever it is that you're wanting to heal from the past, give this as an opportunity to practice this with this person and show them how much you've matured and evolved.

And who knows, maybe they've evolved and matured a lot too. And maybe it is an opportunity for you to reconnect and build something beautiful. Or maybe it's an opportunity to just truly get closure.

And that closure in your heart space can feel so good. It's like a huge weight that lifts because I don't know about you, but if I have people from the past, I mean, I've done a lot of work to make sure I don't have any creepy ghosts from my past that could come out and haunt me. But if you have people in your life that you're kind of always like nervous about looking over your shoulder, like what happens if they reach out to me?

Or what happens if they come after me? We have to lean into those relationships. We have to make sure that we're addressing those conversations and finding closure before we try to bring in somebody new.

Because if we don't, it can open up the opportunity for a lot of extra unnecessary drama or insecurities or just stuff that we don't need to bring, baggage. Baggage we don't need to bring into new relationships. So I think it's a really healthy thing.

Yeah, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

[Speaker 1]
I have so many thoughts on this. I want to share two very quick examples of where I've experienced this. The first was with my ex.

We were together for about two years. And about the first year of it, she had this guy that was really interested in her and chasing her and just kind of trying, but not trying too hard. He would just sort of hit her up.

And after about a year, he gave up. And I'll never forget the day me and her were literally having our breakup conversation, as in why we weren't compatible and we were just finalizing. It was a terrible conversation, like very, very sad.

It was mature, but it was sad. After a year of not reaching out to her, he texted her. And I was like, that right there is proof that there is something in the energy that exists.

He picked up that she's moving on right now, and it didn't even take to the end of the damn conversation for him. So that was one. And then Sam had her ex reach out after many years.

That must have been five or eight years later, right in the middle of our living room. Just one day, he just texted her and she said, Mark, I don't know what to do with this. John just messaged me.

What do I do? I was like, I don't know. Say, yeah, I hope you're doing well, blah, blah, blah.

Just give him a nice message. She said, I don't know how to do it. You're a dating coach.

You respond to him.

[Speaker 2]
I was going to say, at least she trusts you and is open enough to share it and not hide it from you. That's really good.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. So I sent him a nice message. I was like, Hey, great to hear from you.

Hope you're well. Yeah. I've like had a good time.

Yeah. No, I wrote the whole thing and it went down very well. And I said, you know what?

Met someone now, we're doing really well. Hope you are too. Hope things are great.

Wish you nothing. But that was very, very bubbly and lovely. And he took it and he received it.

And then as far as I know, they haven't spoken since. So I've seen two examples of it. And so it's definitely a thing.

I don't know how the energy stuff works. It's more your specialty than mine, but it is a thing. It's there.

The one thing I would like to pick your brain on in this is you mentioned closure. And I have found some of these conversations to be, as you say, some of the most healing and closure driven conversations you can have. I've also seen times where it's interpreted as this is a sign we're meant to be together.

The guy comes back, they have another conversation. She gets dragged through another six months before she finally gets away. So I find it can have a polarizing effect on closure.

Sometimes it's a wonderful experience. Other times, if someone needs closure from an ex who's not willing to, I suppose, give it, you can actually set yourself back in some ways. So I'm curious, does closure need to come from within?

Or is closure something you can seek from another person?

[Speaker 2]
That's a really good question. I guess it depends on the context of what you need closure around. You know, if they really hurt you and you really just feel like you need to hear that apology, it's probably better to lean into trying to have that conversation with them and seeing if they're open to talking about it.

[Speaker 1]
You just can't chase them for it, in my experience. Because if you're chasing someone for that closure, apologize, apologize, apologize, you could spend months, and not just literally, but also in your head with them taking up all your bandwidth on that trauma, whatever they did to you, feeling the pain from it, because, well, I can't let this go until I get closure. They may never give you closure.

So there does come a point where you might have to find it for yourself.

[Speaker 2]
Yes, yes. I'm always just curious, like, what is their motive? Why did they reach out?

Is it because they want to just build back a friendship or reconnect to heal things? Or is it that they're trying to start something again? And I think you can sense pretty quickly when you do give them that opportunity, that first conversation, to figure out, why are you calling me?

[Speaker 1]
Is it to build a friendship? Do you find that to be common?

[Speaker 2]
No, I don't think building friendship. Because I remember that happened for me with the guy that I had dated. And I was like, well, I'm really happy with another guy, but, you know, we can be friends.

And he's like, what do you mean? Like, how is that supposed to happen? What, you wanted me to just call you and say, hey, how's life going?

That's not going to work.

[Speaker 1]
It makes me a little sad that more people don't do that, to be honest. I'm a little weird on this. Sam disagrees with me on it.

But I've always thought, why can't we just call up our exes once a year and check in with them? Wish them well. See all that they did, because your ex is also a reason you are who you are today in terms of your growth, in terms of, you know, I wouldn't have Sam if I didn't have Ange.

I wouldn't have Ange if I didn't have Dana. I look at those relationships, I'm like, if I saw him, I'd give him a hug. I'd be like, let's catch up for two hours or three hours.

I would be very warm with them. But it seems to generally go in one direction. There's not that many people I know where it's both people want to be like that and the current partners are cool with it, which I find it sad, to be honest.

I don't see why we can't be more like that. But it doesn't seem to be the culture.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. Well, I don't know. It's interesting because I was still like the one ex that I had that I was deeply in love with.

I still get butterflies in my heart if I see him post something or if I see him online at something. So it's like, I think there's just there is a delicateness to it that it is easy to just slip, I think, into old past ways and fantasy. And we just don't want to give opportunity for that.

[Speaker 1]
I guess I'm very disciplined with that. And I'm very able to compartmentalize. I've never cheated, done anything like that.

And I'm sort of like, if you and I are incompatible, I don't care how sex you are, I don't care how temper you are. It's like, what's the point? We would just hurt each other.

Why would we ruin the friendship? But I guess maybe that's not a common mentality or something. Because I'd say this to people.

They're like, look at me funny, Teal. Are you insane? Why would you talk to your ex like that ever again?

But she contributed to my life. Why would I not? Okay.

No one gets me. Fine.

[Speaker 2]
Well, it comes back to can men and women be friends, right? That conversation. I think if there are clear reasons why you guys are not compatible, then yes, you can build that friendship.

And you guys can find a new way to have a relationship and appreciate each other for what you gave to each other in your life. But if the breakup or the incompletion or the closure was not fully agreed and established on both sides, or one person was really cool to let go, then it just makes it really tricky. Yeah.

So I would say with people reaching back out, it's usually so that I think you can have one more conversation to kind of level set. This is where I'm at. This is who I am.

This is the maturity I now hold. I love you. I appreciate you.

I wish you all the best. And yeah, now I can let you go in my life. But if you feel like you've got any of those like twingles of, oh, maybe there's still an opportunity.

There's still a chance. And you have that conversation with them and you still see them showing up the same ways, then you got to cut that off and not let, yeah, like you said, get sucked into another six months of trying to escape it again.

[Speaker 1]
That makes sense. That makes sense. I always think, you know, we're always going to be attracted to people other than our partners.

So I guess what you are saying is, well, it's a more dangerous type of attraction with someone you've already been with because it maybe feels familiar than someone new.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. So it's not something you necessarily want to entertain. But like you were saying, if you can have love in your heart and you feel like you've grown and you know why you moved on from that person and you just want to be able to establish that reconnection to say, yeah, level set and let you go and let you love on you from afar.

I think it's a beautiful thing.

[Speaker 1]
Shout out to the listeners. And maybe you can leave a comment if you are doing that. If you're able to, if you've got a relationship with an ex and maybe you guys both have partners now, you're grateful, you catch up once a year, you give a big warm hug and you're super appreciative for each other.

Can you leave a comment? Because I want to hear from you. I think we need to start a little group of appreciation group.

There'll be four people including me.

[Speaker 2]
I have been able to do that with my ex. For a while, many years afterwards, we're connecting every few years or three months, but I still feel like it's like, why? There's still something weird here.

Like, why are we?

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, see, I would answer the question why as, well, this person played a big part in your life. Why not? And you're saying, well, there could be energy there or maybe Spencer or Sam is not okay with it.

There is a lot of why nots, but fundamentally, if you can resolve those, I don't see why I wouldn't. Okay, this person has played a huge role in your life. I mean, your partners, whether good or bad, they are the biggest pivot point that you'll probably experience for better or for worse.

If it's for better, great, love that. If it's for worse, then you take the lessons and great, love that. So it does sadden me a little bit that the people, we stay in touch with these vague friends often, but the people that contributed the most, we seem to have to force distance on.

Anyway, that's my little spiel on that to you. Do you want to hear about my marriage proposal?

[Speaker 2]
Please tell me about it.

[Speaker 1]
I think you'll think this is cute.

[Speaker 2]
I've been waiting for so long to hear this story and today's the perfect day that it's your one year anniversary. Tell us all the details.

[Speaker 1]
So, okay, it starts out, Sam and I, early in our relationship, she knew a bit of my work from online and we kind of got to messaging somehow. I can't remember how, she doesn't know how either. And basically back in 2018, I came over for a visit and we met up briefly in New York.

Now, I was seeing someone at the time. I can't remember if I was in a relationship or just seeing someone exclusively, but I was taken, she was taken.

[Speaker 2]
Hold on, I got to clarify. So she was watching your YouTube videos about being a dating coach.

[Speaker 1]
She knew a little bit, like she'd seen a few of them. She wasn't a super fan or anything, but she'd seen a few of my videos around coaching.

[Speaker 2]
And so how did she connect with you to see you when you were visiting in the United States? Which seemed very...

[Speaker 1]
I think, honestly, we were DMing from memory. It was just like a, hey, I love your stuff. And then she commented, I think I was posting a couple of stories, like upcoming trip to America.

We got into a conversation where and stuff, and it was New York and it happened to be. She was like, oh my God, that's so near me. And basically we kind of got chatting, we sort of connected and she dropped that she was seeing someone early to kind of make it clear, like I'm seeing someone.

I was like, yeah, great, this person I'm seeing as well. So we're kind of clear on that. And we literally caught up just to meet kind of as friends.

And basically that's all it was. And that was my 2018 trip. So that was great, cool, pretty much it.

Over the next 12 months, we would text here or there, but not a whole lot, okay? We would, yeah, every couple of months, we sort of go back and forth, how's life, a little bit of that, nothing significant. By the time though it got to a couple of months before my 2019 trip, I needed tickets to a concert in New York and I couldn't get any of my credit cards to work.

And I was trying to think of someone I knew in New York and she was one of the only people, she was just kind of the first person that came to mind. I was like, hey, really random request. Could I send you 90 bucks or whatever the thing is and you buy me this ticket for this Kashmir concert?

And she's like, that's a little random, but sure, I'm in Europe at the moment. I'll sort it out when I get some time. So we did that and I ended up asking her, hey, if you want to join me, you're more than welcome to do so.

Just as friends, I was very, you know what? I actually wasn't, I wasn't opposed to something happening, but I really didn't have the intent for it to happen. It was, I know you're like, yeah, okay, Mark.

No, no, I actually really didn't because I didn't really want to cross that line with anyone who knew me from online. So I thought, you know what? She seems cool, whatever.

She's probably seeing someone, but if you want to have an extra ticket, yeah, grab yourself one as well. So long story short, we ended up going to this concert and yeah, that we happened to both be single at the time and that was how things kind of started. So after that, we sort of kissed there, things happened.

And then it was towards, that was 2019. We went on a holiday after that to Europe together to kind of get to know each other. This was a few months later.

And obviously towards the end of that year was when COVID hit. So Sam had come to visit Australia and right as she left, basically airports were shutting down as she went. She was maybe a month before.

Side note, she got extremely sick with a random flu virus on that trip home that was never diagnosed by any of the doctors. Huh, maybe some things were happening earlier there. Anyway, at that point we were split.

COVID separated, started 2020, right after our great trip. So I decided, okay, I'm going to have to do some romantic things here. And throughout the year, we did birthdays and stuff.

I sent her this care package and there was a bunch of things in the care package, all Australian stuff, cool stuff. It was fun. But one thing I sent her to was a bunch of envelopes and there was about 10 of them and they were open when, have you ever seen these or received one of these?

[Speaker 2]
Yes, yeah, I love them.

[Speaker 1]
So I was like, open when you're sick, open when we're fighting, open when, open when, I can't remember all the other ones. And then the last envelope was open when I tell you. And that was, that was it.

So pretty much she slowly opened the envelope. Sam doesn't have a lot of patience for these things. So most of them were open within six weeks.

And then the last one was the open when I tell you envelope. And this is about halfway through COVID at this point. So she said, where can I open this one?

I haven't told you. Where can I open it? I haven't told you.

This went on for months and months. Finally, I get my visa and I travel on an empty jumbo jet. That was a whole story unto itself, an empty jumbo jet over to America.

There was five people on that plane. It was insane. I landed in America.

We're reunited. We moved to Vegas immediately. My cat arrives.

Life is good. Our relationship proceeds in Las Vegas. And three years we're in Vegas every couple of months.

[Speaker 2]
Why Las Vegas?

[Speaker 1]
Because we wanted to move somewhere that was between us. So neither person felt like they were sacrificing too much in one direction. So from New York to Brisbane, California is the middle, but we didn't want to live in California.

Expenses and other problems. So Vegas is the next best thing. I mean, I saw Vegas.

I was like, we are living there, man. I love Vegas. I love it.

I love it. I love it so much. Anyway, throughout our time in Vegas, she's bugging me.

She's like, Mark, that envelope. When can I answer it? When can I open it?

I'm like, I haven't told you yet. She said, yeah, but what are you waiting for? Like one of us to die or something?

Are you waiting for like, what are you waiting for? I said, open it when I tell you. I haven't told you.

So this went on. It became kind of an ongoing thing every few months. So finally I decided I was going to propose and I wanted to make it really special.

So essentially, Sam and I took a trip back to Australia. We went to New Zealand. Beautiful trip.

We splurged on a great trip. Very romantic. New Zealand in the winter.

South Island. My gosh, I cannot. We were in ice caves.

We flew helicopters. We splurged on this trip. This was so good.

And at the end of the trip, we returned home to Australia to a place called Noosa. Shout out to the Queenslanders who know what I'm talking about.

[Speaker 2]
I love Noosa.

[Speaker 1]
I took her to Noosa and I decided, all right. I'm going to take her to Noosa and I'm going to propose here. And so what I did, I sent her down to do some shopping.

I got a bunch of flowers. I set up the hotel room. I did all special stuff, nice candles and all this good stuff.

And without telling her I had snuck that one envelope from the care package from four years ago or however long it was, I'd snuck it in to Noosa with me. And so finally, I got her back to the hotel room apartment and I started playing her favorite song, which is Lady Gaga. And I think she kind of knew at that point, she started crying.

And I opened the door and I had a whole setup with the flowers and the candles and everything in that hotel room. And I blindfolded her as well. And so I walked, I walked her up to this.

I undid the blindfold and in front of her was the whole setup. And the center of the setup was this envelope. And I said, don't turn around.

I got down on one knee and I said, you can open the envelope. And so she slowly opened the envelope, took it out, turn around. And it said, I knew from the beginning.

And she turned around and then she got her ring. And she did say yes.

[Speaker 2]
Oh, that is beautiful. Wow.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. I just had it. I had an inkling back in 2020.

And I thought, I think, I think she's it. And I thought if I'm wrong, I'll just never get her to open the envelope.

[Speaker 2]
Because that is like so overly romantic. I can't even. Wow.

My heart's just.

[Speaker 1]
I'm actually not usually that romantic to you. I outdid myself on that one.

[Speaker 2]
Oh, the anticipation, the wondering, the all this. And then to know that she's been holding that envelope for four years and that that's what it said four years ago. It's just, that's just next level.

That's cute, right?

[Speaker 1]
That's nice.

[Speaker 2]
But you did, you did preface it within yourself rationally. Like, well, I don't have to give her the envelope.

[Speaker 1]
There is technically an escape plan here. If this all goes bad and something happens. I honestly didn't think it would.

I kind of had a good gut read on her. But as we said a couple of episodes ago, you know, you just never know in the future. All right.

I, I, 99% yes. Prep for the 1% just in case.

[Speaker 2]
We made it through COVID.

[Speaker 1]
We did do long distance. I can give good long distance advice based on that. And yeah, you know, every relationship has its challenges.

Sam and I aren't perfectly matched, so I don't want to sit here and say, yeah, I like found the perfect person who's perfectly compatible with me. We're not perfectly matched. We still have stuff as you and Spencer do.

So all relationships have this stuff, the disagreements. And I think that's why it's important to highlight as well. That story is very Disney.

Beautiful. Love the romance. The relationship is still built on the difficult conversations.

You know, it's built on working through stuff. It's, it's built on being a team together. And that's not always easy.

People's triggers come up. My triggers come up. I have stuff I've got to work on.

But that proposal, I'm pretty proud of to you.

[Speaker 2]
Can I do a slow clap?

[Speaker 1]
I'll take a slow clap. A clap for myself on that one, actually. I did good on that one.

[Speaker 2]
Oh, that just gave me a nice little warm fuzzy for today. That was beautiful. Yeah.

But I do love that what you're highlighting here is that it's not all the rainbows and unicorns with you just waiting for that perfect person that's just going to be like, I've always known. And it's all just great. And there's no problems.

Yeah. For both of us, you have to work through those challenges to get to the point of really saying, yes, I want to commit to this person regardless of the challenges, because I trust and know we can work through the challenges together. That to me is what really is the litmus test of like, yes, we can do this.

We can be together.

[Speaker 1]
And it's also the glow.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. It's not just the honeymoon moments. It's the, yeah, it's the heart moments that make you go, wow, I love this person so much because I can feel so uncomfortable and still know we're going to be okay.

[Speaker 1]
The, the Hollywood, the Hollywood. That's not a, that's not a sentence mark. Hollywood does us a bit of a disservice here because what gets viewership is the stuff like that story that makes us excited.

That makes us feel a million bucks. If you watch the notebook, it's really what happens after the credits roll. That's going to determine that relationship.

It's how they do conflict. It's how they do that kind of stuff. So yeah, I think you've got to enjoy both sides.

Enjoy those beautiful highs when they're there and they're so magical. And then also go through the tough times of working on your stuff, working on stuff together. And by doing so, you can have a beautiful long lasting relationship with those very special moments.

[Speaker 2]
Beautifully said, Mark. Beautifully said. Well, thank you so much for sharing that.

[Speaker 1]
Guys, thanks for joining us this week on the Tinder Project. We appreciate you. Book in a link if you are booking a call via the link in the description.

If you would like to meet us, Teal's meditations are there as well. And we will see you next time.