After an evening spent dressed in a cow print nightgown, the last thing Lucie expected to find was love. “It was the summer of 2010, not long after I had moved to Zurich, and I’d had a terrible day at work, so I changed straight into my pyjamas,” she says. “My flatmate had invited two of his friends, who he knew through couchsurfing, over for dinner.” After moving to Switzerland from France for her job in supply chain management, Lucie had found hosting couchsurfers a great way to meet visitors and locals. “The idea was that all the local hosts knew each other, so you could recommend someone else when you couldn’t host.”
When Nina arrived with her own flatmate, Adonis, she was charmed by Lucie’s bad mood. “I actually thought she was very cute and funny, even though she was complaining so much,” she laughs. Although Lucie also noticed Nina and enjoyed her company, she’d never had a romantic relationship with a woman before, so didn’t consider it a possibility. Instead, she ended up exchanging numbers with Adonis and they began dating.
“Before long, all of us were hanging out together and Lucie and I developed a close friendship,” says Nina, who was working in customer care at the time. “I definitely had a crush on her but as she was dating my flatmate I assumed she was straight.” As the summer continued, they regularly went swimming together, as well as out for drinks, dinner and to museums and the cinema. “Zurich is a great place in the summer, so we had a lot of fun,” says Lucie.
By February 2011, Lucie’s relationship with Adonis was fizzling out, but her friendship with Nina remained as strong as ever. Then Nina announced that she was moving to Morocco to volunteer on a sustainable building project. “I suddenly realised she was planning to leave very quickly and I wanted to see her before she left,” says Lucie.
After saying goodbye, Lucie had weekend plans to visit the mountains with friends. “On the way there, I was talking about Nina constantly. I was so upset that she was leaving. I’d never felt that way about a friend before, usually I’d be so supportive, but I was just thinking about myself and how much I’d miss her.” After half an hour, she made the decision to go back and see Nina again. “By that point, I just knew there were feelings there.”
While Nina was surprised to see Lucie return, she was very pleased and felt there might be something between them. “We kissed that night and there was so much chemistry. I just wasn’t sure what would happen with me going away.”
That week, Nina departed for Spain with the intention of going on to Morocco afterwards. “We continued to speak and I realised I didn’t want to be apart from Lucie,” says Nina. “I went straight back to be with her.” From then on, the pair were inseparable. “Two years after we started dating, I created a comic for Nina’s birthday about how we met,” says Lucie. “I drew everything by hand.” In 2013, they moved in together in Zurich.
A decade on, Lucie is now starting a business selling plus size fashion, while Nina is a social worker. Lucie admits some of her family members were taken aback by her relationship at first. “I think, deep down, I’d always known I was bisexual. My friends and brother were very supportive, but some family members took longer to get used to the idea. When same-sex marriage was voted on in France in 2013, it was very hard to know some people were against it,” she says. The couple have now made plans to marry next year, after same-sex marriage became legal in Switzerland last summer.
Nina loves that her partner is passionate and always shows up for her and her friends. “I like that she’s willing to work on our relationship and invest her time in us as a couple. I love her intellect and talking to her. I have never been supported like this by anyone.”
Lucie says they “just click”. “There have been tough moments, but I just feel it fits. We have a very transparent and honest relationship. Communication is easy and over the years it’s becoming even easier.”
