An interesting thing I've recently learned about characters is that you don't always have to intentionally design parallels between your characters to be able to find them. Just like every real person has at least one thing in common with another, and probably loads more, your characters will have commonalities whether they realize it or not, or seem similar or not. It's fun to pick out all the things they have in common and just realize that as different as two people seem at first glance, they probably aren't that different.
At first glance, Dominic being a short muscular Asian man with a big family seems to not have a lot in common with Essence Walker, being a tall, thin, black woman, who's family was just her, her mother and her sister. But when you dig deeper you can see all the parallels that can be common grounds for them to connect on if they choose to see the commonalities rather than choosing to believe the other factors make them two different from each other.
Basically it's always your choice whether you want to say you and someone have things in common or not. If you look you'll find it, if you don't you'll never find anything. When you're writing romances and want your characters to be compatible you might think they need to share interests or hobbies, but really, there are so many subtleties that can make them compatible with each other.
Both Essence and Dominic care a lot about making sure that other people are cared for and have the help they need. They are both self-sacrificing individuals, but the differences in the way they go about being selfless is one of the major differences between them.
They've both dealt with colorism and certain siblings being considered prettier than others in their families largely because of their complexions, and both of these things have had strong impacts on them. But again, their responses to these things differ. Dominic finds dark skin beautiful, and wants people to know how beautiful this thing about them is, Essence hates to receive any comments positive or negative about her complexion, and can't consider compliments on her skin tone real compliments at all.
They both are also passionate about creativity. Essence is exhausted by the idea that nothing is really interesting or special, Dominic loves trying to make things special, and this shows not just in the gifts he gives Essence and the dates he plans, but also in his passion for flower-arranging, and cooking.
There will always be things in common.