When Lloyd Mike offered a stranger kindness and comfort, he benefitted in an unexpected way from the encounter...

"A few years ago, a beloved girlfriend of mine ended our relationship. I was still desperate to go out with her. I was feeling pretty low and had gone for a drink to drown the old sorrows. On the way home, I bumped into a guy standing outside the gates of a local hospital. He was in a pretty distressed state and he started talking about his girlfriend who was in the hospital having a baby, but he couldn't get in to see her. After a brief conversation with him, I discovered he was homeless and in despair because the relationship with girl had ended a year or so ago. He'd got very drunk and found himself at this hospital. He was obviously still obsessed with her and in a pretty bad way. But the coincidence that we were both the victims of failed love, and the fact that I was feeling generous, led me to offer him a bed for a night.

So I gave him my bed and a little bit of advice on how he might sort himself out, then I sat up all night thinking about my situation and how obsessed I was becoming with it. By the time morning came, I was feeling much better - I suppose more at peace with my problems. We said goodbye and went our separate ways, and I gradually came to terms with the fact that relationships do end. I'm sure if I hadn't met the guy when I did, I could have gone down a similar obsessive path that he had gone down."