We Know So Little About Each Other

When I tell people I grew up outside of Pittsburgh, they first usually ask if I’m a Steelers fan. Then, if they’ve ever been, they’ll tell me about their first Primanti’s sandwich. Primanti’s is a sandwich shop that opened in Pittsburgh during the Great Depression and has been a staple ever since. The gimmick is that they put fries and coleslaw on the sandwich. When I worked at the YMCA day camp in my hometown one summer, we would sometimes go to Primanti’s after work. I always got pizza.

People have big feelings about Primanti’s—it’s either a nostalgic centerpiece of the city or an overhyped mess. Neither here nor there. Its relevance to this story is simple. My partner—who long before we met had been going to Pittsburgh for various family reasons and, and this is important, whose favorite food is a sandwich—has never been to Primanti’s. 

When this critical piece of information came out in our family room one day I was stunned. Catching up with my mom later this week, I shared the news and she was just as aghast. But his favorite food is sandwiches! 

In the moment, of course, I was completely stumped. We had talked about Pittsburgh a lot when we first got together and as we’ve shared many, many meals (and many sandwich debates) at this point, I couldn’t understand how it hadn’t come up before. 

We know so little about each other, I jotted on my whiteboard mostly as a joke.

A couple weeks went by and I added another line: Could we be excited by the fact that we have so much still to learn?