Michael – Grey Lynn
“Ah, oh last night. I guess I made a bad decision on not seeing someone.
And instead of sort of shying away I sent them a text message pretty late at night saying, I’m sorry I didn’t come over, it was the wrong decision, and if you are still awake then I’m happy to come over and talk. It seemed to resonate, so that was good. So yeah, that was probably the last time. An ex-girlfriend, and it’s pretty mutual, I guess break-up. We decided it wasn’t working out. But she was going through a bit of a hard time, of late. (She) wanted to see me and I sort of pushed away, but after a bit more thought it was probably the right thing to go over and just have a bit of a chat to her and stuff like that. So, yeah that’s the one.
I’m the Operations and HR Manager for Mojo Coffee. They run 12 different cafes around the Auckland City. It keeps me pretty busy. It definitely keeps me out of trouble. As far as Auckland, it’s home; born and bred here. Don’t see myself living anywhere else at the moment.
One of the main reasons that we were obviously well aware of right at the beginning, there was an age gap. That became a lot more obvious of the differences there as time went by. I guess then it got to a point where it was a frustration level on how I thought she handled situations, which was I guess a maturity level. And for whatever reason it just sort of ground away at me inside and we couldn’t quite get past that, and it’s ended up being I don’t know, a negative cycle of where I would either upset or disappoint her. She would make me angry or frustrated, and then we’d have a good week, and then we’d go back on the same cycle. So, we decided it probably wasn’t the best way to live. For me, a healthy relationship is complete honesty and I think through that comes the trust factor. Having conflict isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
It’s not about completely being on the same page all the time. But being able to speak very freely and openly and value each other’s opinion I think is, you know, what a good relationship for me would be. She is one of my employees. So that was another factor in the relationship. We kept it on the down-low for a very long time while we decided to see if it was actually going to go somewhere, before making it a public announcement I guess, or at least, you know, letting work know and other people. So we felt like we were on a pretty good good playing field in regards of where we were wanting to be, but it didn’t work out, so…
Mum and Dad are still together. I’ve got a younger sister. We’re a very tight family. I love my family to death. If I can be as half a good parent as my parents have been to me then I think I’ll be doing a good job -I consider myself very, very lucky for that. I guess as far as the upbringing, Mum and Dad Mum would like to wrap us in cotton wool a lot of the time but she understood that life, you know, wasn’t as easy as that.
But in regards to spending time with friends, she was cool with that, but hey if it meant we, all the friends could come over to our place, she would much prefer that than maybe us being elsewhere and stuff like that. I guess a lot of my friends were going through broken families and stuff like that and I know even to this day, now 35 years old, a lot of my friends, you know, value my own parents decisions or recommendations or they’ll go to them rather than going to their own parents so, which is nice, you know that they’ve got someone, I guess.
I guess it’s very hard to imagine my parents not being together. You know it’s just been so solid since, well forever. Ah, since I’ve been around anyway. I guess the aspect of what I’ve witnessed from my friends is the double standards or the not the same rules in every house I guess, and that’s in an early stage when you know, you still had to listen to your parents about bedtimes and stuff like that, but in a later life, I don’t know. It’s just knowing Mum and Dad have definitely got each other’s back and there’s no hidden message, or they’re not playing off each other I guess, is a factor as well, so…
Look I, I don’t have a type, and I consider myself to be that. I think the right person will present themself, and I think at the right time. I think the someone that I’m looking for potentially would be someone that I can grow with, in a lot of ways and definitely have a family with. That’s, that’s big for me, so yeah.”
