If you know my boyfriend, you probably know that he loves sports. Like I mean loves them. And not just one sport. There isn't a time of year that he doesn't have a sport (or two!) that he's watching and has a team that he's a die-hard fan of. And I mean die-hard - like watch every single game of all his teams...and even other ones.
Now if you know me, you know that I'm the complete opposite. It's not that I hate sports, I just don't necessarily feel the need to watch them. Or care about them. I'm one of those people that picked a "favorite" football team only because I wanted to like the opposite of what my grandpa liked (sorry, Pop).
So how did I end up at a football game screaming my head off for the Cowboys and getting really excited when they won? I ended up there because of compromise.
I don't really like sports. I'm just not interested in them. But in the past year, I've gone to more sporting events than I have in my entire life and I've watched more games on TV than I ever thought possible (which I swore I would never enjoy-I was wrong). Why? Because even though I'm not a huge fan of sports, I am a huge fan of my boyfriend and since he enjoys it, I try to make an effort to be interested in it.
I'm not saying that I've dropped everything and become a huge sports fan because I haven't. But I go to the games. I listen when he tells me about all the different players and I go and sit in Buffalo Wild Wings on Sunday's to watch the games. And I've been pleasantly surprised to find out that I think I actually enjoy sports when I have someone to explain all that sports jargon (thanks, babe).
I think when you're with someone that you genuinely love, their interests start to become yours. Not because you personally love it but because you have fun watching them enjoy it and sharing that experience with them. My boyfriend never went to the theater in his life before he started dating me and since then he's gone to every single one that I've gone to.
He listens to me when I go off on rants about literary theory and he is even reading The Girl on the Train before we watch the movie. He makes an effort to be interested in what I'm passionate about, I make an effort to be interested in what he's passionate about.
I can now tell you who my favorite Cowboys player is (Ezekiel Elliot) and Josh could probably explain to you why the post-colonial literary theory is important. Neither of us thought we'd ever be interested but here we are. That's compromise, and that's what makes us work.
