Jenny Block navigates the travel relationship
I travel a lot — for work and for play. And to do volunteer work, too, actually. I’ve been traveling a lot for a long time, which means not only am I good at it, I also have very specific ways of doing it. Very specific. So when I met my now-wife, who also loves to travel and does a ton of it, there was a bit of the clashing of the minds… and the egos.
It all started just three weeks after we met. We were heading to Isla Mujeres.
“May I have your passport?” Robin asked me.
“Why?” I replied.
“So I have it,” she answered.
“But why?” I asked.
“So I know where it is,” she said.
“But I know where it is,” I responded. Long pause.
“May I have your passport, please?”
For whatever reason, I handed it over. Probably because I’m not a huge fan of confrontation and, heck, if someone else wanted to be responsible for me after I’d spent all of my grown-up years being responsible for myself, have at it.
She was the same about my plane tickets, even putting my electronic ticket on her phone. And she had everything perfectly planned — the shuttle to the ferry, the ferry ride itself, the taxi to the hotel, the restaurants, the activities.
Thing was, I loved it. And I felt super weird about it. I always did all of that stuff. I liked doing it. I was also the boss of all of the passports and tickets. I liked that, too, because it meant I didn’t have to worry about any of that stuff because I did and had all of that stuff.
Why? Well, here’s the thing. I have a rule. If you are as good or better at “the thing,” whatever “the thing” may be, then I am delighted to step aside. If not, just let me do it. I don’t need to be the boss. But I won’t be bossed by someone less capable than I.
Turned out, she’s great at most of the travel stuff. (I say “most” because foreign languages are 100 percent my wheelhouse, as is finding a taxi when getting a taxi is “impossible.”) But it left me wondering: Does she love doing all of it, or did she just do it because, like me, she believes that the girl who’s best at the thing should do the thing?
After a couple of trips, I discovered it was the latter.
She had had a heap of trouble with former partners when it came to traveling together. One insisted she knew where her passport was only to discover three days before an international trip that she had no idea where it was. Another caused flights to be missed because she just could not get up and out on time. Another simply could not behave in travel groups, causing others not to want to travel with her. So, when I met Robin, she was operating on travel offense and prepped for additional defense.
And here’s one reason why I fell in love with her: When I not only explained, but also showed, what a wiz I am at switching her from a checked bag to a carry-on in an emergency travel situation; at snagging impossible-to-land reservations at Michelin-starred restaurants; at zipping through airports to make preposterous connections; at cancelling and getting refunds on non-cancelable/non-refundable reservations… not only was she thrilled, she handed over at least half of the reins.
She does all the things at work. She does a lot of the things at home. So she is happy for me to do at least a lot of the things when it comes to play. She still loves to hang on to my passport. She loves to book the flights and the hotels — which she is aces at. The point is, we work together and it works well.
We also push each other when it comes to our adventures. I have always loathed anything that smacks of touristy. She introduced me to the delights of the Hop On/Hop Off Bus. It’s totally silly, and it’s a totally great way to get the lay of the land before you begin to discover the intricacies of a new place. I introduce her to restaurants she never would have otherwise found and to places she didn’t even know she didn’t know about.
We are still working on the on-going, “No, you decide what we’re doing today/No, you decide” banter, which has led to missing out on things one or the other of us wanted to do but was too busy deferring to the other. But with each trip we learn. It’s OK to put your foot down or to go off on your own. Yes and no are always the correct answers. The keys are kindness, consideration and compromise. And no regret. There’s always the next trip.
This is a piece about travel. And it isn’t. It’s really about marriage, about relationships. It’s about self-respect and respect for the person you love. You learn as much about yourself and the person you love when you travel as you do about the world beyond your front door. I’ve learned that nothing is more important than working together, on your relationship, on yourself, on healing our nation, on saving our planet, and on exploring all the places about which we know nothing and from which we can learn everything.
Contact Jenny at GirlOnGirls@gmail.com.
