Dating vs Relationship

[InbetweenDreams]

I was talking with one of my friends last night as they invited me over to do dinner and hangout.

In our discussion before I went home he said that when he and his partner (now of 11 years) first started living together things he never thought would be an issue became an issue. For instance, my friend is kind of anal and particular about things... The example he gave was toothpaste... His partner would just squeeze the tube anywhere and it bugged him. That's not really the best example. Now I try to imagine what sort of things I might do that might drive someone to the brink of insanity and vice versa, it is hard to think of those things and I think that is all due to not being in a relationship where I had lived with someone else and having to share things like toothpaste or food...

My friend of course learned to loosen up a lot and he said at the time he was dating his partner he really wasn't looking to settle down, he was perfectly fine with the idea of just having hot hookups and so on. I find the whole thing interesting and I want to hear more about what other people have experienced. No, I don't think reading other people's accounts are going to keep me from driving someone crazy because I left the toilet seat up or whatever... I'm sure there's plenty of shit I would do to drive someone crazy and I think it is really different from dating, or even a stay over... all that stuff, even when it isn't planned isn't the same thing but I do think something like a stay over is good but of course everyone is anxious, must hide all the messes and things, and I think it is when we getting comfortable that all the things that one might do to annoy us start coming out of the woodwork. Of course there's a whole host of other problems I mean someone could be bad with money, they could be a cheater, they might stay out late, they might start ignoring you, there are many many things at stake. The thing is that while I feel like my God I would never hurt my partner in anyway, I know that's basically bullshit, I don't want to but to think I'm somehow impervious to not doing that is very much flawed. I want to try to be more aware, more proactive and prevent things from going sour.

Now, yeah other posts, other things yeah hunting down someone right now isn't my priority...but I guess for now it is nice to to discuss and try to take note of these things so, hopefully, when the day comes that I will at least have the knowledge and hopefully be smart enough to catch things and try to be a good person.

So I am hoping to hear your accounts, stories about how you dealt with things and how it changed you and your partner...

[SilverBullet]

To be honest, when I was with my last ex. He did allot of stuff that I thought was weird or slightly irritated me. But the longer i was with him the less the little things bothered me and I just accepted them .
Some even became "cute". One of his weird things, when he was driveing he would like (imagine touching the tip of each finger to your thumb, in sequence, pinky to pointer finger) only he didnt simply touch the tips to his thumb, he actually overlapped the thumbnail with each of the finger nails of each finger. like if your trying to get something removed thats stuck under your nail.

I dont even know if he realized he did it. But when we drove sometimes I would hold his hand and at times he would just randomly start doing that with my hand, useing each of his fingers and each of mine. it was like a automatic thing haha. I was like oook, this is weird, but you like it? I wont interrupt.
then over time I attributed it as a quirk of his and found it adorable.

I guess overtime, with all things, you normalize behaviors. Bad or good. They only stand out at first because you arent use to them.

[InbetweenDreams]

I occasionally do something similar, I mean kind of the same thing...

I guess in my case since I had about 3 months of living by myself and having to deal with most of the things one has to deal with while living on their own. I know that just me living by myself that I am different. I like having the place clean... I really enjoyed parts about it, but that's nothing like having a room mate or partner or anything of the sort. In fact the only time I had to deal with a room mate was the one semester I did at WCU...He was pretty never there and it was 3/4 into the semester so yeah not much information to go by.

But yeah I can see how some ticks or habits can actually be cute or even amusing... I do pay a lot of attention to body language and stuff like that. I really really like face to face over everything else but it's hard to come by in these parts...