Bending, Shaping Long before I fell for her, I had myself figured out. I stood by my values firmly, defending them even as they caused relationships friction. After that, I reconsidered what I believed and the degree to which I valued it.

One cold winter, we traveled somewhere hot together. It was in this place far from home that I found inner conflict. Months earlier, I refused to go to the zoo with a woman I was seeing. She found this intolerable, just as she found my choice not to eat meat intolerable. In these ways, the woman I had fallen for now was similar. And it was with her, far from home, that I went to the zoo with; and it was with her that I ordered and ate a meal with chicken. My desperate hope was to not fall into the problems I had previously fallen into. To show her that I wasn't weak-willed.

The effort was wasted. Our relationship went nowhere, and I regretted both things immensely and immediately. That was how I came to the obvious conclusion that because I was weak in her eyes was the reason I my will was strong. That I had given up my conviction to be with someone with far less. And in the end, all I had left was a deep distaste for my moral malleability.  ¶ 11:11 AM