Do you ever have the “What if” dream? What if I sold everything I own and traveled? Think of the places you would see. Think of the people you would meet. We want to introduce you to a couple that did just that! Couple of Sports. A few months ago we came across them on twitter, right as they were embarking on a year’s journey around the entire US in search of sport. They are attending a sporting event in each state! Of course we emailed them and said, “come watch a game on the Blue Turf in Boise. We didn’t think we would hear from them again. Well we did! Mark and Jackie called us and we struck and instant friendship. We had a chance to show them around our fair city. They are two kind and inspiring individuals.
As you can imagine, one of our questions for them was….do you guys fight? Living in such close quarters day in and day out, we would KILL each other. We asked them to share their best fight:
Couple of Sports – A Different Kind of Food Fight
From the beginning, my wife and I have shared one thing: A love for food that knows no bounds. We love going out to eat, which is an ever-present part of dating that we continued into our marriage. We love trying out the newest trendy restaurant, finding that hidden gem, or partaking in the local street food when in a new city. And we both dreaded the necessary months of dieting, but always found a chance to reward ourselves with a night out.
But somehow, this food love-fest has sparked some of the biggest fights in our relationship. The main culprits? Either indecisiveness or stubbornness, depending on the night. We’re always on the same page at the beginning; we’re hungry, and don’t want to cook. But after that, things can go awry quickly.
“What are you in the mood for?” is a much more loaded question that you might imagine. Most often, neither one of us wants to be the decision maker, because we don’t want to go against the other person’s subconscious preferences. Inevitably, one of us will break down and choose a place to go, which could lead to an exchange like this:
– “Ugh, Mexican food AGAIN?”
– “But I thought you were open to ANYTHING?”
– “Well, I thought you wanted something new!”
– “Fine, YOU decide!”
And the vicious cycle is repeated yet again.
On the flip side, one of us wants sushi REALLY badly, and the other one wants pizza. There’s no real compromise there, unless you trek out to multiple places. On those nights, either one of us doesn’t get what we wanted, or we decide to be uber-stubborn and not go out at all, so neither of us can be happy.
We tried to hedge our bets by making a list of places that we wanted to try out. In order to make it on the list, we both had to agree that anything on the list would be something that we would both be willing to eat. This proved effective at times, but still led to fights when we each wanted to go to the place that we had put on the list.
And now that we’re traveling the country in an RV, our food fights have just changed locations. We still argue about where to eat, when to eat, and how many fast food stops is too many. But with limited refrigerator space on the RV we’ve quickly learned one thing: Compromising on food choice is a lot better than eating ramen for the 4th straight night!
1000Fights: What a great fight! We wish Mark and Jackie the very best out on the road!
We are Mike and Luci.