- Disney movies had a huge impact on my life
and I think because I was so into their storylines.
I would always fantasize about this prince in a sense
who would put me on a pedestal, you know,
and just kind of for us to have our own happily ever after.
I couldn't say that it was my parents
that I looked up to for that kind of storyline.
They went through divorce when I was two.
- I'm the only child, both my parents were divorced.
Sometimes it was kind of difficult getting along with them
just because my dad was a military dad
and he was very strict and you know,
I had to follow all rules, and my mom was
like the polar opposite, right?
My mom was like the, you know, give me all the love,
and at the same time teach me how to be like a bad boy.
I was at the beach with my shirt off
swimming through the ocean.
- Is that how it went?
- And I saw this beautiful goddess.
No.
- That's how we would've liked it to go, but.
- Yeah of course, no, it didn't happen like that.
- We began as friends first for say probably a year or two.
So the first time we ever had class together
you sat behind me and then throughout the entire class
you were just like, you know, teasing me like
it was middle school.
He was like poking me behind my head.
- I don't even know what I was doing at the time.
I don't know, I was like, was I flirting with her?
I don't even know, I was just like, I'm just playing around.
I was basically being like a immature guy, I guess,
but I think that's kind of like maybe in the back of my head
I was like, I like this girl.
We used to always talk about like relationship problems,
like I'd hear hers and then she would hear mine,
and I think people used to always joke that we should date
before we dated.
Cienna just seemed very, you know, caring and a good friend
and I thought I feel like there's this beautiful
loving person right in front of me.
I asked her to hang out with my family right away,
I was like hey, and so we'd already been friends,
but like so that you wanna go, you know,
to hang out with my family at Disneyland?
And she was like oh is this a date?
And I was like yeah, it's a date.
- I feel like when we first began as a couple
everything was new and you're all bubbly and giddy inside
where it's just like oh my gosh, you know,
you're my boyfriend, we're spending time together.
- We just kind of enjoyed kind of just doing
a little bit of everything with her,
whether it was going to movies, watching shows together,
playing board games, being old people together.
- Yeah.
- That's your queen? - Yep, bye.
- No it's not.
- That's my queen.
A couple of years after we started dating
I was in the dorms at the time,
I hardly stayed in the dorms because I was always
sleeping over at Mark's.
- I think it just got to the point where I realized
it's like she's always over here
and like why is she, why does she need to be,
you know, staying in the dorms?
And at the same times the dorms were very costly
and so she moved in.
I think it really kind of moved us forward quickly
in the relationship as far as like, yeah.
- Getting to know each other.
- So I know in the beginning I was the one
who always wanted commitment, I wanted things to be
like okay, you know, stamped, we're together, or are we not?
That's why I was always asking about
like is this a date, are we just friends?
I wanted to know what we were.
- Labels, you wanted to know the labels.
- Yes, that's my...
- I was like labels are irrelevant.
- Okay, hence carefree, maybe and a little controlling,
so we kind of clashed on that, but.
- I don't like that. - What?
- The controlling thing.
You know what I mean?
I don't know, it's just like I feel like sometimes,
the thing about, what's the best way to describe it is like,
she would assume that I knew what she was thinking
and I did not, I missed the signals completely sometimes.
- I remember the fights and I remember the good times,
but when it came to maybe a few months in
I was really concerned about there not being
enough affection in the relationship,
so I was kind of asking for some changes already,
but I think it was still undetermined if,
if things were gonna go smoothly from that point on.
At the same time?
- Now you wanna do it at the same time?
- Yeah.
- We are... - We are...
Not together. - Yeah, we're not together.
- Yeah.
Things ended about 10 months ago end of last year
and it was my decision for us to split
and that was because I thought we were taking
each other for granted in the relationship.
- Cienna made a huge impact in my life
and really like you know, changed the way I saw things,
the way I you know, saw women, the way I saw,
how I treated relationships, and I think
it helped me mature as a man I think, and you know,
and I never thought that would happen, you know?
- Taking that break really gave me like time to think
for myself 'cause I think a lot of times
in our relationship because I wanted to be around you
so much and everything I put so much effort
and all that attention into the relationship
versus you know, trying to think of us
both as equal people, but I'm really happy
that we're able to be friends now
because it wasn't easy for us to become friends again.
- Yeah.
Love is complicated and it's not as easy
or transparent as people might think it is.
- I'm so happy to have you in my life still Mark.
- Come here Cienna.
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