Different tastes

Moving in with someone means that you have to start compromising. And accepting. It's about behaviour, everyday habits, taste in colours and furniture and clothes, general ideas, likes and dislikes, what to eat, how to spend your vacation, what TV-show to watch, when to do laundry (-and more importantly- how to do laundry), how much money to spend on different things, and... The list goes on.

I thought the behavioural stuff would be the hardest for me to accept. That I'd get irritated with his grumpy morning moods, his impatience when it comes to having to wait for things, his teasing sense of humour when I'm tired, his sighing every day when he finds cat hair on his clothes or on his chair...

And I was right. Those things bug me. Immensly. But I can still find it a bit charming as I know these "attributes" are a part of him. And I know I have behaviours that drive him nuts. Things he has accepted to cope with in order to live with me. Me turning into a whiny and awfully bratty five-year-old when I'm tired. My inability to keep organized with my stuff as I leave marks all over the apartment (my side of the desk always has a huge pile on it, my armrest on the cough is overfilled with knitting stuff, my side of the dinner table has old newspapers or letters or magazines on it, my side of the bedroom has a pile of dirty clothes on the floor...). My constant talking while he's reading and my snapping when he tries to talk to me while I'm sitting there with a book...

What I have a harder time dealing with is his taste in clothes, furniture, colours, styles and whatever. I've been brought up in a "modern" home with stylish furniture and I'm one of those who prioritize looks to usability when it comes to furniture. It doesn't have to be practical or superduper comfortable if it just looks nice... I like things to be colourful. I'm not particularly fond of "countryside style" with pleated curtains and tableclothes, pinewood furniture and rag-rugs.

He's the opposite of me when it comes to that. He's all for things being practical. He likes it when things look old. And sort of rustic. Proper. And with "normal" colours. He doesn't really like things that stick out, that are seen and noticed. He doesn't like to spend extra money on furniture if he's found something just as practical somewhere else and it was cheaper there.

Buying furniture is a PIA for us. It takes time. And it involves a lot of sighing and eye rolling. From us both. I tell him he's got boring taste and he tells me that I have stupid taste.

It almost always ends in me winning and getting what I want. 'Cause I care more than he does. Or because I'm more stubborn. I don't know. I've always been able to say but honey, we still sit and eat at your ugly dinner table and on your hideous blue chairs, and I'm struggling with that.

Since of this weekend, I can't use that anymore.