my personal break-up story, so let's get into it.

(dramatic rumble)

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 really 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 because 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 really, really 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 really 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 really blame him for,

I really 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 her and I became closer and closer

but just as friends.

And I usually don't really 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, some way 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 really 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 basically inseparable.

And for the next three years we shared a lot of experiences

together, 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 really want that.

So I actually encouraged her to go away because I knew

that is what was best for her.

(dramatic rumble)

And it's now at this point in the story where things

start to get a little interesting and much, much more juicy.

(dramatic rumble)

Just before summer began, she committed to going to school

in the United States which meant we were about to embark

on the 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

in 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 really 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 really 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 rowing stuff."

And she really 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

really weird and distant and quiet.

And I had known her for long enough to know

when something was wrong, and something was definitely 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 absolutely 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 really 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?"

(dramatic rumble)

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 end 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.

In my video about how I became popular

I briefly talked about taking responsibility

for your emotions.

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 a temporary happiness, maybe even

as long as five or ten years, but those toxic, dependent

roots will still 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 really honest with yourself, because I really

do believe you can't have a great relationship

if it's based around fear.

If you wanna learn how to get over a breakup

then click the link on the screen to my worst breakup video

and I'll see ya there.