We all have those ?relationships that go wrong at the worst time possible. It can’t feel like chance.
You know, like a breakup after having made big plans with family and friends.
Or a separation after ?having made some sort of considerable investment. Like, for example, getting a pet.
It may not be the greatest idea to get a dog with your ?significant other until the two of you are at least living ?together.
Such a situation is usually an unsettling experience, ?considering that when you end it, the last thing you want to be reminded of is that breakup. A dog, for example, would be a daily reminder.
Yet these pre-breakup commitments you make can often find their way back to haunt you.
A friend of mine had told me how awful he felt after ?paying for a speeding ticket from driving his ex to class ?after they had already ?broken up. I thought that was a real bummer. Not only were they broken up, but it wasn’t his fault for speeding — and he had to pay it.
But that was before I heard about Canadian Jordan Axani, who had bought tickets for a trip around the world with his girlfriend, only to break up with her before the trip.
How embarrassing, right? No one wants to be reminded of a failed relationship.
Yet Axani, being the ?ever-Good Samaritan, ?decided to offer the tickets for free to a woman with the same name as his ex-girlfriend. Didn’t see that once coming, did you?
Part of what drove ?Axani’s kind offer has had to do with him being the founder of a charity in California that helps underprivileged people travel.
Axani endorses the strong belief that travel should be a “rite of passage” instead of a luxury. It is something everyone should have the chance to experience.
And so, after going through a thousand emails, he finally decided to offer the tickets to Elizabeth Quinn Gallagher of Nova Scotia, Canada.
The trip turned out to be what Axani called “a ?life-changing experience.”
They had a great time as travel companions and learned a lot from their ?exposure to different cultures.
And don’t you worry. Elizabeth Quinn Gallagher has a ?serious boyfriend, so there wasn’t anything silly going on during the trip.
Although I am a big ?believer of equality and I agree that travel should be made ?accessible to everyone, there is something about this whole ordeal that’s discomforting ?to me.
I guess it probably has to do with this modern blend between public and private.
I would like to believe that regardless of what a previous relationship may have been like, there is something ?irreplaceable about it — something personally meaningful. It is a shared experience between two people who love each other. Yet Axani’s travel offer seems to undermine that. Sure, it’s a great idea.
But I can’t help wondering how his ex-girlfriend, the first Elizabeth Gallagher, would interpret this gesture.
And I can’t help but wonder just how much it had to do with attracting publicity for his charity and how much of it was sincere.
nywu@indiana.edu
