Fighting

2 scenarios (one should sound awfully familiar)...

Anthony works in a pretty tight career field. That is everyone who has is job knows each other and are competitive. His ex, Karen, is amongst this group as is one of her good friends, Tamara. Anthony and Tamara have begun spending lots of time together. Anthony is interested and Tamara seems to be as well, but she has pause. After all, Karen's her girl and though she seems to have easily moved on from Anthony, Tamara doesn't want there to be any bad blood between them. One night, things between Anthony and Tamara escalate and they have sex. Afterwards, Anthony felt good about the way things were headed, but in the ensuing days and then weeks, he heard hide nor tail from Tamara. They went from communicating with each other frequently, to not talking at all. Anthony wonders if he should press the issue, because he really really likes Tamara and thought she felt the same, or keep it pushing. After all, she quit responding to him...

Kayla's known Evan for years. They've both always flirted with each other and she didn't think much of it. A few months ago, Evan pushed the envelope a little bit and seemed to be more serious about his advances than before. Kayla, not wanting things to get awkward ignored his advances until he all but laid it on the line. However, when she tried to talk to him about it, he initially dodged the issue and then outright denied that he was doing anything but harmlessly flirting. Kayla knows better, but feels like unless he's ready to be real about it, it's not her problem...

The question for both of these situations/scenarios is, is "fighting" worth it.

I'm Kayla (no duh, right?) and my friend is Anthony. We both seem to agree that relationships take work and sometimes require a little more effort..."fighting" However, he tells me I'm not a fighter because I don't see the point in belaboring an issue on the front end. If we're a few months into something and we hit a rough patch (as all relationships do), I'm ready to hike up my pants and get to work and I hope my s/o is too. However, I'm not fighting you to be in a relationship with me. Not on the front end. If you can't put forth the effort in the beginning of the relationship, then I can already tell what it's gonna be like when we hit that rough patch.

Anthony, on the other hand, sees glory in fighting from the beginning. Putting in that work on the front end, it seems, validates the relationship in his eyes. Proves that he's "down to ride" (as it were). After all, if you're the type to hit the ground running, then I guess it's safe to assume that whatever rough patches we might hit will be nothing with you on board.

What say you... are you only a fighter if you're willing to fight from the very beginning, or is there merit in waiting for a reason?