Despite his life being an open book in terms of being a YouTube influencer, it’s interesting how much he was able to hide about the demise and aftermath of his relationship that he’s now talking about. It really seems like it was quite messy, at least for him.
I get that for most of us, especially in the past, didn’t get to go through high school experiencing crushes, dating and relationships, especially a public factor of friends and family knowing and supporting us and we weren’t quite able to develop socially that way as many to most of our heterosexual peers did.
But I was openly Gay in the 80 during college and Mark was openly Gay at least the second half or 2/3 of college as well, and decades later in a more Gay friendly environment. But it seems like when it comes to romantic relationships and the give and take of them he’s didn’t socially mature at all, and his break up with Ethan left him about the level of an eleventh grade high school first love break up instead of a mature adult, which he was at the time.
It seems Ethan was a much more socially and emotionally mature person, despite the vibe of Mark seeming like he was the one in charge, more together and the leader in the relationship. I can see that conflict being something impossible to breach in trying to maintain a relationship. I think Mark was a very needy and insecure partner, and Ethan was more confident in the relationship and wanting independence.
They were very much at different levels of maturity, maybe the experience of growing up and working on a farm and even needing to come home and help when family situations arose gave Ethan a better understanding of responsibility and the tools to be an adult. While Mark socially and emotionally arrested and didn’t develop those skills.
Like the girl who married her high school boyfriend and builds her life all around them and never seems to grow beyond that and lived in a world of arrested development. And then is completely unprepared to deal with the world when her marriage ends at 25.