Relationships are great but they also take work. No, I don’t mean like a chore but something you put effort into because you want to. No matter how long you’ve been with your significant other, you always learn something new about them, yourself, and your relationship. Not only because people change but also because traits and characteristics start to reveal themselves little by little. Two years into our relationship and my boyfriend Vince brings this up, “If I was acting this weird when we met, I wonder if we’d still end up together.” I paused for a while and wondered the same but it didn’t really matter because we’re together now and I love his little quirks, even when he purposely tries to annoy me.
Some might say our relationship is somewhat new and in a way it is. We’re discovering each other’s and our own personalities more and more as time passes. There is one very recent experience that revealed some sort of dynamic in our relationship along with how we work together.
One Saturday afternoon, Vince and I decided we would spend the day building a Lego Millennium Falcon from Star Wars. It had more than 7,000 pieces and a bunch of characters so we were excited to get started. This little activity we planned is a mix of things we love: Star Wars, building or making things, and following an organized manual. As we start building the structure, we developed a system. We would build one piece each from one page. Simple enough, right? Halfway through the first instruction manual and our system changed. One person would build while the other picked out the blocks and pieces. The first thing I noticed is that I like to take my time. I’ll study the figure in the manual and carefully put the blocks together. Vince, on the other hand, works very quickly. Very, very quickly. He would start building and I was still picking out the different blocks. I felt compelled to work faster but I ended making a few mistakes. (Okay, way more than a few.) Towards the end of completing the Millennium Falcon, Vince was so focused that I almost didn’t want to bother him. Four hours later, we were done. Our butts hurt from sitting on the floor and we didn’t quite know what to do with the sculpture. “…What now?,” Vince asked. I replied with “I don’t know.” So we ended up taking a three-hour nap.
So what did I learn from this experience? Once Vince starts something, he gets really focused and he is determined to complete the task. I also learned that yes, we are both methodical with the things we do but we approach situations differently. I would also definitely build another Lego model with him because it’s fun and something we both enjoy. Lastly, nothing completely new but we both really love naps.
Art by Lara Intong
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