Healthy relationships aren't simply formed; they are forged with love, respect, and compromise. While these three aspects are core to a balanced relationship, they must come from a place of love. Only then does it show one's willingness to prioritize the happiness of the other person. One such story of heartwarming love and compromise was revealed on TikTok recently when a woman posted about how her boyfriend wakes up at 3:30 am to walk her to the station as she heads off for work.
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In a short clip uploaded by TikTok user @micmicaa, we see her boyfriend waking up before dawn to drop her off at the station. The video has a detailed caption that reads, "He works full time during weekdays and I work during the weekends but he'd still wake up on his only day off just so we can walk going to work together instead of walking all alone."
The video is an amalgamation of different clips recorded by Mica on different days. Each clip shows her boyfriend opening their home's door and leading the way out. We see the couple walking together in the dark. He accompanies her to the train station and waits with her until her train arrives. In the floating caption of the video, the woman reveals that the walk to the station is approximately 20 minutes.
Image Source: TikTok I @micmicaa
As per her revelations in her previous videos, she is a full-time baker and currently lives with her boyfriend Jamie in Queensland, Australia. Since the couple moved in together, Jamie has been walking his girlfriend to the train station for work.
Image Source: TikTok I @micmicaa
In an interview with Newsweek, Mica said, "Jamie started walking me to and from the station ever since we started dating and moved in together. We work at the same shop, and he does this for several reasons. He wants to make sure I am safe and not walking alone. Since we're saving for a car, he also wants me to save money from booking an Uber because I'm a student with tuition to pay."
Appreciating her boyfriend's selfless act, Mica said, "I really do hate walking as much as waking up at 3:30 am but waking up and walking with my boyfriend to work even on his only days off makes me feel secure and motivated to start my day. Seeing him pick me up from work is the best reward after a long day."
The video on TikTok has been showered with love and praise from other users. It has been viewed over 600,000 times and liked by more than 50,000 users. People have expressed their love for this simple act of love shown by Jamie by filling out the comments section. Appreciating the boyfriend, one user, Melinda Halden (@melhalden), commented, "Oh my gosh this is the sweetest thing ever. How thoughtful and caring." Another user, @carrington.tremaya, said, "You and he are most fortunate to have each other."
Image Source: TikTok I @ruthhanley913
Image Source: TikTok I @hampshiregent1
You can follow Mica on TikTok for more updates on her life and baking career.
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Will your current friends still be with you after seven years?
Professor shares how many years a friendship must last before it'll become lifelong
Think of your best friend. How long have you known them? Growing up, children make friends and say they’ll be best friends forever. That’s where “BFF” came from, for crying out loud. But is the concept of the lifelong friend real? If so, how many years of friendship will have to bloom before a friendship goes the distance? Well, a Dutch study may have the answer to that last question.
Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst and his team in the Netherlands did extensive research on friendships and made some interesting findings in his surveys and studies. Mollenhorst found that over half of your friendships will “shed” within seven years. However, the relationships that go past the seven-year mark tend to last. This led to the prevailing theory that most friendships lasting more than seven years would endure throughout a person’s lifetime.
In Mollenhorst’s findings, lifelong friendships seem to come down to one thing: reciprocal effort. The primary reason so many friendships form and fade within seven-year cycles has much to do with a person’s ages and life stages. A lot of people lose touch with elementary and high school friends because so many leave home to attend college. Work friends change when someone gets promoted or finds a better job in a different state. Some friends get married and have children, reducing one-on-one time together, and thus a friendship fades. It’s easy to lose friends, but naturally harder to keep them when you’re no longer in proximity.
Some people on Reddit even wonder if lifelong friendships are actually real or just a romanticized thought nowadays. However, older commenters showed that lifelong friendship is still possible:
“I met my friend on the first day of kindergarten. Maybe not the very first day, but within the first week. We were texting each other stupid memes just yesterday. This year we’ll both celebrate our 58th birthdays.”
“My oldest friend and I met when she was just 5 and I was 9. Next-door neighbors. We're now both over 60 and still talk weekly and visit at least twice a year.”
“I’m 55. I’ve just spent a weekend with friends I met 24 and 32 years ago respectively. I’m also still in touch with my penpal in the States. I was 15 when we started writing to each other.”
“My friends (3 of them) go back to my college days in my 20’s that I still talk to a minimum of once a week. I'm in my early 60s now.”
“We ebb and flow. Sometimes many years will pass as we go through different things and phases. Nobody gets buttsore if we aren’t in touch all the time. In our 50s we don’t try and argue or be petty like we did before. But I love them. I don’t need a weekly lunch to know that. I could make a call right now if I needed something. Same with them.”
Maintaining a friendship for life is never guaranteed, but there are ways, psychotherapists say, that can make a friendship last. It’s not easy, but for a friendship to last, both participants need to make room for patience and place greater weight on their similarities than on the differences that may develop over time. Along with that, it’s helpful to be tolerant of large distances and gaps of time between visits, too. It’s not easy, and it requires both people involved to be equally invested to keep the friendship alive and from becoming stagnant.
As tough as it sounds, it is still possible. You may be a fortunate person who can name several friends you’ve kept for over seven years or over seventy years. But if you’re not, every new friendship you make has the same chance and potential of being lifelong.