The Champagne of People

My partner and I received a few raised eyebrows upon informing various friends of our weekend plan to go to ikea—expressions similar to those we received when we travelled abroad for the first time—the general sentiment being “woah big step”, or “you sure you’re ready?”, as if this casual shopping trip possessed an inordinate amount of gravitas.  We all know the stigma, the many pop-cultural references and urban myths of happy couples who enter the Swedish super-store only to emerge hours later, relationships ragged and ruined.

 

We, however, were not concerned.  

 

We’re generally good communicators, my partner and I,  and have generally similar aesthetics and are generally mild-tempered people.  There was the added comfort, too, that we do not live together and would not be shopping for a shared space, just for our individual homes.  I was confident that the trip would be a breeze and that that Saturday would end as uneventful and lovely as any other banal weekend adventure.

 

I was right… mostly.  There was no in-store meltdown, no pointed comment about a linen choice that spoke to some deeper resentment.  I did raise my voice once, in jest, and we laughed about how we were “that couple” fighting in Ikea. But it was mostly uneventful.  Mostly.

 

While there may not have been any outright tantrums, there were times when we disagreed or  when our taste was not as compatible as we might have hoped.  There were also moments when I probably could have been more tactful in expressing my opinion.

 

As we moved from glassware to linens, my partner grumbled (good-humoredly) about how I was attacking his personal aesthetic.  I was doing no such thing—at least, not intentionally—and I tried to defend myself by citing times when he hasn’t liked my taste.  He insisted that it was not the same, that disparaging one’s clothing choice was not as personal an attack as disparaging the way someone chooses to furnish their home. I held firm that it was the same, that it was all simply self expression!  But as I tried to see it from his perspective, and to find a compromise in the towel aisle with the person I love, I realized it’s not the same.

 

Home aesthetic may express the same amount of personality as an outfit, but for the average person, picking out a sofa is substantially more important, has a bigger financial impact, and is a deeper commitment than the purchase of any article of clothing.  If someone doesn’t like my outfit, oh well, I’ll have another one on tomorrow. But if someone doesn’t like my couch—the couch I scoured store after store for, the hundredth couch I plopped down on to test cushion softness, the couch I planned the entire apartment around, the couch I had to set up monthly payments for a year to afford—if someone were to say, off the cuff, that they thought that couch was ugly, that just might break me.

 

Beyond the investment of time and money we put into finding the perfect furniture, the pieces we settle on become our home.  When you move to a new place, the space you create for yourself becomes your haven.  When life is inevitably stirred up by one major event or other, when comfort and routine is shaken up by work or family or friends, the fixed familiarity of your home provides a much needed anchor.

 

I used to watch couples fighting in Ikea (fictional and real) and assume they were just selfish or stubborn or just generally a bad match.  But now that I have been there, I can see how easy it is to lump your hopes and fears in with which throw blanket you buy, and how easy it can be for things to fall apart when two of your most intimate relationships—the one you have with your lover, and the one you have with your home—are not immediately compatible.  It takes an incredible amount of introspection and open-mindedness to successfully merge two lives, even if that merge is still a ways off.

 

Just the prospect of having to compromise on, or give up, pieces that have brought you immense comfort or pleasure or joy,  for whatever trivial reasons, is hard! And if you are like me, you won’t think about how hard it is until you’re in the thick of it.

 

I’m not in the thick of it anymore, I’m on the other side of it.  Trite as it may be, Ikea taught me something. In some small way, it showed me many of the ways in which I know my partner deeply, and many of the ways in which I don’t.  I realized that even the hypothetical choice between the things that bring me comfort and the person who brings me comfort would be harder than I expected when the time came.  Our casual trip to ikea was a fun little reality check on some of the sacrifices that come with a relationship, and why it’s worth making them.

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