I Felt More Comfortable Fighting in a War Than Going on a Date

I had gotten very comfortable on the extremes of the human condition because as you said, war is. It reveals the humanity at its absolute worst. The darkness of humanity, the absolute darkest closet, also reveals human beings sacrificing their lives for each other. Like love at its highest expression in a way. Right. Viktor Frankl talks about this in man's search for meaning. Where people in the hell on earth, at concentration camp, cold, suffering, darkness, they would give away their last piece of bread to help somebody else. Like the level of love, the level of compassion in that darkness of hell. Right. So you see that in. And I had gotten very comfortable thriving on those absolute edges.

Yeah.

And the mundane was harder. So that's what. You know, it's not to say I wouldn't be scared going to war, but I'm much more comfortable doing that because that's an edge I play in. That's an edge where I'd gotten. I wouldn't call it addictive, but I. There's something very raw and pure about seeing humanity without the masks we wear in normal society. Yeah. And not just war, but even these experiences like Antarctica, when you see that the masks get shed and you see the essence of the human spirit, for better or for worse, rising. And it's pure and it's true. And there's a powerful nature to that, to experiencing that. That's what drew me in now. Going on a date. There is vulnerability to that, as you said. Right. There's a lot of. You're no longer as in control. You feel a lot less in control. There's somebody else now.

It's not just you and your brothers laying your life on the line for each other anymore for. For a greater cause. It's actually the deepest penetration of your soul and the essence of you as a human being that could ever possibly take place if you're doing it right.

Yeah.

Which is what these ladies want. That's what they want from us anyway, so. So bring us through the stages of the fear in. In intimacy with a woman versus war. Can you go in deeper into that?

Yeah. You know, I think part of it also stems. When I was in high school. I was quite the goofball. Not very good at meeting me too. I wasn't.

I was like voted class clown in the yearbook.

Got you. Okay. So I was similar. A lot of drugs as well. Just doing a lot of dumb shit in high school. People have cuts on my arm, burns from a cigar burn right there. Oh, wow. So very self destructive. Lost two friends to addiction and I was like, the way to Prove myself. Because I had moved around a lot. Moved from Bangalore to Bombay to Bangalore to Singapore to Austin. By the time I was 13, four different cities, three countries. As a result, I became very adaptable. But the shadow side of every strength, every strength has a shadow. Right. Is impressionability. So not to blame anybody, I take responsibility for my actions. But as a young, impressionable kid, I got very heavily into drugs. So my course, my avenue for expressing myself was I was the crazy one doing the most hardcore drugs, doing all this crazy, like cutting myself. Wasn't very good with women at all, you know, and so that there was a remnant of that, I think, even throughout the years that lived with. But also just nerve wracking, the nature of being, like you said, vulnerable on a date. And then there's this kind of this, this dance that happens with the other person. It's no longer just you kind of controlling your own fate. When I do the things I do in Antarctica, running ultramarath, I control my own fate. If I. No matter how much I suffer, and I've even joked with this with my endurance friends, if I could just suffer in dating like I do in Antarctica, I'd crush dating, you know, because in Antarctica, it's. It's on you. No matter how bad things get, if you put one foot in front of the other, you keep moving forward.

Yeah.

It's on you to navigate that. I have an iron will. But you can't apply that same iron will in some of these other settings.

No.

So it's a realm that I was much less comfortable playing in. And that's, that's the gift. I mean, when I got into this relationship with her, it brought up a lot of beautiful things that I wasn't confronting. You know, now I had been married.

Beautiful. You also mean painful. Beauty.

Challenging. Yeah, absolutely. But that's the beauty, right? It opens up new doors.

Yeah.

Okay.

Because, you know, I've always heard that love can be like a rose. At times it's beautiful, it's budding, but there's thorns. So when you, when you hold love. Love. Love is not always meant to be this like puppy dogs and candy canes thing.

Absolutely.

Yeah. I'm curious when it comes to your fiance too, and she's here in the studio with us too, so it's. You can't lie. Not. Not that, not that you would. Not that you would.

Yeah.

But. But seriously, for. For everyone who's with us who's actually even trying to conceptualize the, the proposed dichotomy we're talking about but it's actually not a dichotomy. War and love. There's. There's elements of humanity in both of them.

Very much so.

And so when it really came down to it, in your deepest heart, in your deepest core with your fiance, how did you actually transcend or push through or put whatever words you want to on it? That fear of vulnerability, that fear of maybe a place that in war you were comfortable, but in love you are not. How did you transcend that or push through that or morph that into something more of service?

As simple as it may sound, is. Is the way out was through. You know, like, even driving up to her on the second date, I had anxiety in my stomach. But her creating a safe space to navigate, that was also helpful. The second date, we talked about me going to Antarctica for four months. I was actually scheduled to go this year. Right now. I wouldn't be having this conversation with you. I would be in Antarctica. So we. This was. We've been only dating now four months and second date for like two, three and a half months ago, whatever it was. We. We were talking about me going away for four months. Do you kind of want to go down this ride together? Right. And I told her on that second date, I was like, I was googling what to talk about on a second date. She found it adorable because the only way out was openly sharing. Yeah, this is how nervous I was.

So you told her that on the date? Hey, I was googling what to talk to.

I was googling. I mean, it wasn't like the first thing I said, but it came up later in the date.

Ye.

Like, I was like telling her how scared I was. I was telling her how nervous driving up to her, I had anxiety in my belly and I do some crazy things. And this was more anxious. And I told her I just shared it with her. And that. That sharing she shared with me. The nerve she felt, it created that space for just pure openness. And the fear got alleviated. If I got so scared and I feel that anxiety and I didn't step into it, I wouldn't have drove to pick her up. I was that nervous. Yeah, I drove to pick her up. She could tell I was nervous when she first got in the car, when we went for a walk in a Papago park in. In. In Phoenix. And I was so nervous initially. And on that same car ride right then, we were chatting. Cause I'd been up a little bit, navigating some fears off Antarctica and dating. The two nights, I think the night before two nights before and we got talking about it before we even got to the park. We just went all in, started talking about Antarctica, started talking about what we both want from this thing and going deep. And that allowed us to move through the vulnerability, the authenticity. You know, I can't tell you how many dating coaches were like, you shouldn't go that deep that soon. And I think that's nonsense. That's nonsense. We went deep and that's what allowed us to move through is pure sharing. This is who I am. This is the essence of my being. This is what drives me. This is what I'm scared of. This is what you're scared of. And we open that door and that, yeah, that. That's how we move through.

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