A love story in Portugal

I know I'm a fool. Love is a form of terror I'm drawn to. I'm perfectly fine on my own. So why would I want to give my heart to someone who can tear it in two? But when I lie in bed at night, what I crave is her touch and the way only she can make me feel. There is no drug I want as much. So call me a fool. I won't disagree. I just want to go where only she can take me. So check this out. Kind of incredible. The reason I'm in Portugal right now is because back in January I received an email. Raquel and I met in your discord and we are now engaged. These two people met by both first stumbling upon my YouTube channel. At first I thought it was a joke. When I started making and sharing things online I never in a million years thought something like this could happen. Well, it's no joke and I'm here to attend the wedding. I honestly didn't even know what they looked like until they sent me the wedding invitation. I came to Portugal to investigate. To join me as my plus one was my father, a man of wisdom, cunning, and vast knowledge in the field of love. Also, he has a wonderful YouTube channel I'll link to in the description. He's also one of those rare people nowadays that's still happily married over three decades after he met my mom. I tried to ask my dad for advice about love, about how he met mom, and how they've made it work all this time. But it's a difficult conversation because he comes from a very different time, a different world. A world without dating apps or social media. Things have changed. So the conversation usually goes something like this. You're getting a chocolate shake? What about the nasty vanilla? No, I'm not a vanilla guy. Strawberry is interesting. Oh no, I know what I'm getting. Peanuts baby. Entao. Opigi ou peanuts baby? Can I ask you? A little bit of advice? What I'm wondering is, how did you know that you had found the one? I'm not a smart man, but I know what love is. What are you talking about? When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible. You're not even answering my question. The best love is the kind that awakens the soul, that makes us reach for more. Listen, don't take this the wrong way, but I... I feel like I've heard all this stuff before. Like, I feel like you're quoting something. The greatest thing you'll ever learn. Why are you singing? Some people are worth melting for. Okay, so my dad doesn't actually quote movies like that. But my point is that this kind of conversation usually leads to a dead end. And there isn't much he can offer me in the way of advice beyond vague platitudes. What the limited vocabulary pop culture gives us to talk about this. Don't get me wrong. I believe the things my dad says. It's just that not a lot of it amounts to practical advice because how could it? The night before the wedding, on a traditional Portuguese tasca that was absolutely packed amidst the delicious smells and good conversation, I did actually ask him. I can't even hold it. This is huge. Do you have any legit advice for your son about love? You don't manufacture love. You don't force it. You don't chase after it. Like you intention it. You know, I know you want to find somebody, but that person just shows up. I had that experience. Like, nothing was working. I was trying all these different things, feeding people, and then mom showed up. I mean, like, literally, she showed up out of nowhere. So how do you explain that? The funny thing for you is moving to the countryside, which I don't know what that's going to do to your chances. What is this? Ooh, it's fish. Wow. We're having it. You're saying love just happens. So it's like a fake thing? Is it just sort of like it's just going to happen? It's just kind of like in the cards, it'll just happen? How does mom going to an English school at night, night school for English, right? How does she meet an Argentinian woman who knows all these Argentinian parents, gives her number to two of my close friends. Who happen to be in dating somebody or whatever and give me the number both of them, you know, you should call her And I call and she ends up being my wife. How do you explain? There is something Synchronistic about how it happened. It's conversations like these that really make me think there's a lot about life that I'm never going to understand Before we go any further. I gotta thank the sponsor this video I'm just gonna be serious here for a second and say that even just getting to the point where I could open up about this whole topic of love and dating and relationships has required a lot of therapy. Every relationship I've been in has taught me so much about myself and the areas that I can work on but I have that clarity only thanks to therapy. Your friends and family can be wonderful support and good to talk things out with but they are most likely not therapists and therefore it's absolutely not the same kind of support. BetterHelp, who is sponsoring this video, offers more affordable therapy compared to traditional options. They're also much more flexible and more accessible because it's online and can be adapted to fit your schedule. Another big plus is the fact that you can try different therapists out and keep changing for free until you find a match. You also have the option to communicate with them either by video call, phone call, or text. It's easy to sign up and get matched with someone immediately. There's a link in my description if you're interested in checking it out. Or you can just go to betterhelp.com slash nathanieldrew. Clicking the link helps support this channel, but it also gets you 10% off your first month of BetterHelp. Now everyone knows that when you go to a wedding, you've got to make a proper entrance. So here's how we did it. This is my life moment. It's like, wow. Like, that really just lets you recognize how great we have it. So off we were to the wedding, set in an idyllic spot in the Portuguese countryside. I have to admit, it was a pervading sense of absurdity that he and I were even attending, considering we knew no one, including the couple getting married. I'd say surreal is the word. I don't use that word much, but it's like, I'm in this kind of dream. Jonathan, the groom, recognized me. And we had a chance to speak with him for a brief moment. He said something that really stuck out to me. And then within a few days, like a week or something like that, we were starting to talk. And then within 10 days of talking, we were dating. I think definitely any time in the past where I've tried to open up to people, there's a certain performative nature. But when you have that kind of doing something, you forget. And I think that when the game of pretend kind of stops... and the self-consciousness dims down a bit. I think that's where there's a lot of room for it to happen. You let your guard down is what you're saying. Yeah. Hi, how are you doing? No one seems to be like mosqueado. It's just Nathan with his dad. I asked one other guest who was attending the wedding how she met her husband and this is what she told me. We met... Oh my god, this is actually so funny. We met at school, I was 16 and then we rekindled, guess what, through Discord. No! In the pandemic. Are you, no! Yeah. Are you serious? We rekindled through Discord because we had nothing else to do other than play games online and talk on Discord. What? What? Yeah, it's actually so funny, I just remember that. So yeah. The scary and wonderful thing about love is that when you open yourself up to it, you find yourself doing things you never ordinarily would. One of the all-time great scenes in cinema, in my opinion, are the final moments of Richard Linklater's film, Before Sunset. Quick warning, spoilers ahead. I'm talking about when Jesse is walking up with Celine to her Parisian apartment after spending the day together. He's not supposed to be there. He has a flight to catch that he's already late for to go back to his unhappy life in the States. Why the fuck isn't he leaving? But of course, we all know why. He doesn't want to leave Celine. I've actually done this. I was once visiting a Swedish girl in Stockholm, and when it came time to leave, I just couldn't bring myself to go to the airport. She didn't want me to go, and I didn't want to go, so I just didn't. I felt dizzy seeing two different life paths splitting before me, and making a snap decision to stay. Thank you. Thank you for saying yes. In the end, it wasn't meant to be. But I had to really give it a shot to know for sure. It is rare when you click with someone. Like, really click. And for me, it's just about the most exciting thing you can experience. It's one of those things that, when I surrender to it, I become fully present. No more thinking. No more of that useless analyzing that I spend so much of my time doing. No. It's just experiencing. Experiencing being in my body. Being alive. Being with someone. Feeling drawn to them. Of course, the flip side of that coin is the terror, the fear of losing them, of not being wanted anymore. But as a man in the mountains once told me, you don't get that excitement without fear. It's a package deal. In a day and age when relationships feel harder than ever to navigate, I do admire two people going for it. It's a brave thing to do, to take the leap. I couldn't help but smile as I captured these moments behind the camera. And it's funny to think that I'm just a side character in their journey. in everybody's journey. In your journey too, wherever you are watching this. We all begin as strangers, and for some reason or another, we bump into each other as we go through life. And sometimes, it feels so good to spend time with one another that we decide to stick around in each other's lives for a while. Relationships aren't about feeling good all the time. In my view, your relationships always have something to teach you. It has always felt worth it to me to take the leap, even if it's painful. Learning to let go and not be in control is hard for me. I tried to think my way out to analyze what's going on. We didn't go to this car. I think we were like, oh, I'm just gonna find my husband. Sometimes there's really nothing to be gained through analysis. Sometimes you just experience a connection and your time together is the teacher and that is enough. So I guess that just leaves me with one option. The only option all of us have. all the time. I'm just gonna keep living my life, getting out of my head as much as I can, and out into the world. I believe things have a funny way of working out how they're supposed to. And this is one of those things that doesn't need to be figured out. Thank you, Jonathan and Raquel, for the invitation to your special day. It was an absolute honor to be there. Long may you love each other. If you enjoy the way I make these videos and tell stories. I made a filmmaking and storytelling masterclass called Frame by Frame. I'll be closing the course from future purchases permanently in January because after that I plan to focus on other endeavors. I love what I do and have spent years now experimenting with this format that has completely changed my life. Obviously there's a thrill whenever you're shooting in a cool location you're like, oh my god the shots look amazing and it's all coming together. There's that excitement of leveling up. If you sign up now, you can join a community of hundreds of people around the world and get access to a bonus live week happening early November where my brother and I will respond to all questions and provide direct feedback on your work. The course includes full details on my writing and filmmaking process, gear, how I edit these videos, and even a full animation course from my brother Sky who has animated many of my videos in the past. If you are interested, check out fxfcourse.com or the link in the description below for more details.

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My father's channel → https://www.youtube.com/@UCgBliunhQU_Rl65nUPGgxsA 
Thanks Sky (my little brother) for shooting the dance sequence with my dad → https://www.youtube.com/@Skymography/featured

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Timestamps:

0:00 – A poem about love
0:37 – Two of my subscribers are getting married
1:15 – Asking my dad for advice
5:17 – Sponsor
6:15 – Dangerous dancing skills
6:50 – Arriving at the wedding
8:52 – The scary and wonderful thing about love
10:35 – I'm just a side character in their journey
12:39 – If you'd like to learn how to make videos like this