How Matthieu and Sébastien met, and everything that followed

Lausanne, October 2016

It all started on a dating app. For several months, we texted without ever managing to meet in person. Every time we thought we might cross paths somewhere, one of us had just left before the other arrived, or the opposite. Nothing formal, nothing planned, just a long sequence of almost-meetings that never happened. When we finally met for real one evening in Lausanne in October, nothing suggested what would come next.

Matthieu was rather shy that night. Sebastien talked for two, as he often does when he is a little nervous. On his way home, Sebastien was convinced it would not go any further. Too different, maybe. Bad timing, probably.

And then Matthieu texted again.

The second date was different. Something settled between us that evening, without us needing to name it. From that moment on, we never really left each other.

A story that wrote itself

What still strikes us today is that we never had that official conversation. You know, the one where people decide they are a couple. We never asked ourselves whether we were going to be together. It happened by itself, naturally, like some of the most important things in life: no ceremony, no formal decision, no date to remember.

Matthieu started by spending a few nights at Sebastien's place. Then most nights. Then all nights. One day his things were there too. We never discussed it. We just looked up one morning and understood we were living together.

That has remained our rhythm ever since. Things find their place on their own, and we let them.

Budapest, our first trip

A few months after meeting, we flew to Budapest. It was the first time we traveled together, and it felt like a small revelation. We wanted the same things from a city: long walks, good food, a few cultural landmarks, and time to simply sit somewhere, have a drink, and watch a place breathe.

We came back knowing travel would take an important place in our life together. Budapest was the first of a long series. Over the years we accumulated weekends away, longer escapes, road trips, whenever work allowed it. Each trip confirmed the same thing: we travel well together. Not because everything is always smooth, but because we seek the same kind of journey.

What keeps us together

If we had to explain what makes us work, the answer is simple: we talk. A lot. About everything.

When something is wrong, we say it out loud instead of letting it grow in silence. When one of us feels tension, he names it. We turned that into a rule, almost a discipline: putting feelings into words rather than sulking or assuming. It is not always comfortable, but it helped us avoid most misunderstandings that slowly wear couples down.

We also put love into words just as much as tension, probably even more. We say "I love you" in the morning, and many times during the day, without waiting for a reason or a special moment. We say it simply because we feel it. And in public, we have a little sign: a heart made with thumb and index finger, sent discreetly across a room. A silent way to remind each other that we are here, one for the other.

But there is something else, maybe even more fundamental. In the first months, we told each other something we have repeated ever since: we are a team. Not just two people in love sharing an apartment. A real team, in the most concrete sense. We are here to support each other, carry each other when one gets tired, and above all lift each other up. We push one another to become better, celebrate each other's success without jealousy, and encourage each other's ambitions even when they go beyond us. When one of us doubts, the other one believes for two. This is probably what built us the most, individually and together.

This team dynamic also appears in harder moments. When one is sick, exhausted, or empty, the other naturally takes over, does the effort for two, carries what he can. No scorekeeping, no accounting. We know it will be the opposite next time, and we will be there then too.

It also shows in small things. In public, we stay united, always. We can disagree on a topic, but we never disown each other in front of others. If there is conflict, we revisit it later, at home, just the two of us. Never in public. This basic, almost instinctive loyalty is part of what makes our relationship solid.

And this same team dynamic is what allowed us to imagine an entire year of travel as a duo. Sharing one bag, one budget, and one small room for twelve months is hard without this certainty, deeply rooted in us, that we play on the same side.

The idea of leaving for a world tour

The world tour was an idea Matthieu mentioned now and then over the years, like a dream he let exist without fully believing in it. Not a project he carried alone, not an obsession, just a desire that came back from time to time in conversation. Sebastien listened, smiled, did not reject it, but did not commit either.

Then, at one point, something shifted. Sebastien began to feel a form of fatigue in his work. The conversation changed nature. The idea stopped being abstract. We put a date on the calendar, and once that date existed, the trip became real.

We were not running away from anyone. We did not leave anything in anger. We simply decided to move toward something: time, presence, and the chance to see the world while we still have the energy and curiosity for it. We know too many people who postponed their dreams to a later that never came. We did not want to become one of them.

So we left.

What comes next

We do not know exactly who we will be when we return. That is part of the point. We spent years building a stable, structured, comfortable life in Lausanne. This year is an opportunity to look at everything differently: our wishes, our priorities, what we want to build together next.

What we do know is that we will have traveled. We will have written. We will have photographed. We will have met people we would never have crossed paths with otherwise. And we will have done it together, which for us is probably what matters most.

The rest will be written along the way, like the rest of our story.