Category: Love Story

The Man We Deserve

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Girls, never ever settle less than we deserve. We need to believe that when we love someone sincerely, we all deserve to be loved back in the same amount of sincerity.

We all deserve someone who appreciates our effort to take care of him. Do not settle with someone who takes our efforts for granted.

We all deserve someone who texts, calls, and makes times to meet us. Do not settle with someone who does not put us as his priority. We don’t need to fight or beg just to have his times.

We all deserve someone who tells us the truth. Do not settle with someone who always has a reason to lie over and over again. Big or small, a lie is a lie.

We all deserve someone who is proud to have us. Do not settle with someone who puts us in the closet. It will only break our heart.

And finally, we all deserve someone who is willing to fight for us. Do not settle with someone whose affection is up and down. Someone who comes and goes will eventually leave us forever.

We don’t need a perfect man. Not either a prince charming riding a white horse. We only need someone who does his very best to love us back. And after all the love we give to him, we deserve that.

Let Life Surprise Me

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A few nights ago, I went home to my kost place and found something that froze me for a while. I looked at an empty shoe rack and smiled alone. And just like that, it reminded me to many random memories on how life could be so unpredictable sometimes. I may be known for having a strong guts feeling on anything, anything… but my own love life.

I still remembered over fifteen years ago, I had to join a Yogyakarta tour for my final exam at IEC. My classmates had joined the previous trip so that I had to go there alone. I told myself that night before departure, “That’s okay… Who knows I would be in the same group with a cute guy? And he would be my first boyfriend!” And I was right… that night in that bus, I met my first love. But then I was wrong… He only thought of me as a fourteen years old kid. My first love ended as my first heartbreak.

One year later, I met a new guy in high school. The time was not right in the beginning, but I believed someday we would be together because for so many reasons, it seemed like we were meant to be. But then again, I was wrong. Now everytime I looked back, I couldn’t help but wondering, “How could I fall that deep for this guy?”

Many years after that, I met a guy in the office and for the first time ever, right at our first met, I looked at him and it just crossed my mind, “This guy is going to be my soulmate.” We did have a chance, but we didn’t make it until the end. Right after that, I gave up. I no longer trust my own guts when it comes to love. People says when you know, you know. Yet somehow, I just never know!

The funny thing is that, my guts feeling is rarely wrong on many other things in life.

I knew that I would succeed my career. I used to write down what I wanted to be in my 20’s, and here I am… 29 years old and pretty much living my own dream.

I knew that my younger sister would get married before me and I would have a loveable nephew or niece from her. And I was right. Now I’m a happy auntie for my beloved 3.5 years old nephew.

I also knew that unlike many others, my friendship with a classmate back in college would last long, and here we are… we’ve been friends for 12 years and still counting.

I knew it all, but I never know how my love life would end.

Back to my kost place, so I just moved into that place around 4 months ago. I used to have an imagination that I would live right next to a cute neighbor. And then we would get to know each other. And then I would have finally found my Mr. Right!

It sounds stupid, I know… but you know what? I was indeed having a cute neighbor right next to my door! We ran into each other in some chances but we never managed to get to know each other. I always thought that I would always have another chance to say hi. And then 2 nights ago, after leaving the kost for 2 weeks for my Umrah trip, I went back to that place and I was frozen seeing his empty shoe racks. He had moved out even before I knew his name.

So there I was, 2 nights ago… Standing alone, looking at an empty shoes rack, and bitterly smiled to myself. I’m always wrong about this one.

That empty shoe racks moment was actually not about that guy next door at all. It was merely about being tired for being wrong all the times. Having the same disappointments over and over again was just frustrating to me. It was frustrating, until last night, an officemate showed me a post on her Facebook. That picture on her phone says, “Sometimes you fall in love with the most unexpected person and the most unexpected time.”

So there I smiled again…

Maybe, that’s how I’m going to get my happy ending. It’s not gonna be someone I have in mind, not someone I mention repeatedly in my prayers, and maybe, not anytime soon like I want it to be. I may never see it coming, but it will come! Sooner or later, all of that past disappointments would only make a perfect sense. And if I think about it again, my life would be less interesting if I can always predict anything that will happen to me, wouldn’t it?

Hence I guess for this one, just let life surprises me. So life, bring it! 😉

Do We Need a Backup Plan in Love?

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Pernah ada seorang teman yang menyarankan supaya gue juga punya backup plan untuk urusan cowok. Apa yang dia maksud dengan backup plan? Semacam cowok ‘cadangan’ just in case gue enggak berhasil mendapatkan gebetan yang gue suka. Pertanyaannya sekarang, “Do I really need that?”

Omongan si teman itu awalnya hanya gue anggap sebagai angin lalu. It sounds like a crazy plan to me. Sampai kemudian, tiba-tiba gue sadar dengan sendirinya… Gue sendiri pun, satu atau dua kali sebelumnya, pernah melakukan yang namanya backup plan untuk urusan cinta-cintaan.

Kenapa gue melakukan hal itu?

Karena gue enggak yakin hubungan gue dengan si gebetan ‘inti’ akan jadi kenyataan. Gue enggak yakin dia juga punya perasaan yang sama kayak gue.

Dengan adanya backup plan, at least, hidup gue enggak sedih-sedih banget. Jadi ada hiburan yang bisa bikin gue lebih cepat melupakan rasa sedih akibat patah hati.

Kemudian ada juga yang bilang, hadirnya si cowok ke dua bisa membuat si cowok pertama jadi merasa ‘terpancing’. You know… Guys’ competitive instinct; they will work even harder when they know they have a competitor.

And finally, a backup plan could save a little bit of my remaining dignity after being ‘rejected’ by the one whom I really wanted.

Jika demikian, apa benar berarti backup plan itu wajib hukumnya?

Baru-baru ini, ada satu kejadian yang bikin gue jadi malu sendiri. Singkat cerita, gue jadi bertanya-tanya sama diri gue sendiri, “Bagaimana kalau gue sendiri yang dijadikam ‘cadangan’ oleh orang lain? Will I be happy with that?”

Senangkah gue saat tahu cowok yang rajin telepon gue itu nantinya akan berhenti cari-cari gue setelah berhasil mendapatkan cewek impiannya itu?

Senangkah gue saat tahu cowok yang dinner date sama gue itu juga pergi nge-date dengan cewek lain dalam waktu yang hampir bersamaan?

Bisakah gue mempercayai omongan manis cowok yang bisa jadi juga mengucapkan gombalan yang sama persis kepada gebetan-gebetan dia yang lainnya?

Dan apa kabar harga diri gue kalau gue sampai tahu bahwa gue hanya satu dari sekian orang lainnya dalam hati dia?

What makes he think he can do that to me? Who does he think he is?

If I don’t like being treated as an option, then why should I treat other people like that? I don’t want to be just an option, not even the number one option, I want to be the only one. 

Beda orang bisa jadi beda pendapatnya. And it doesn’t matter if you still find its necessary to have a backup plan. Yang penting buat gue, kalo gue enggak suka diperlakukan sebagai ‘option‘, jangan pula menempatkan orang lain dalam posisi yang sama!

Lalu bagaimana jika nanti kita tidak berhasil mendapatkan gebetan yang kita inginkan itu?

Well, we’re a grown up, aren’t we? Just man up and deal with it! Don’t play with fire if you’re afraid of getting burned, don’t fall in love if you’re afraid of getting hurt.

You Jump, I Jump

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Masih ingat adegan di film Titanic di mana Rose bilang begini ke Jack, “You jump, I jump, Jack!” Satu adegan yang meninggalkan kesan mendalam buat gue… Kemudian hari ini, gue ngobrol-ngobrol sama salah satu teman cowok soal alasan kenapa perasaan gue sering banget berubah-ubah dengan sendirinya.

Gue bilang, “Gue suka galau sendiri karena cowok-cowok itu juga enggak jelas apa maunya. Padahal gue sih simple aja, you jump, I jump!”

Teman gue itu malah bilang begini, “Emang susah sih, itu… Cewek gue sendiri aja masih pake safety belt.”

See? It’s not only me!

Cewek pada umumnya itu cenderung ingin mencari rasa aman. Kita cenderung enggak berani menjadikan perasaan kita sendiri sebagai taruhan. Malah kan kalo kata orang tua jaman dulu, perempuan itu lebih baik dicintai daripada mencintai. Konsep jaman dulu yang agak salah juga sebenarnya, tapi intinya, perempuan dari jaman dulu sampai jaman sekarang itu cenderung sama-sama saja: mereka perlu diyakinkan, itu saja!

Makanya kalo gue ngelihat teman-teman cewek seumuran yang masih pacaran ‘sembunyi-sembunyi’…

Atau yang masih enggak mau kelihatan vulnerable di depan pacarnya sendiri…

Atau mungkin yang seperti gue; kadang suka, kadang biasa aja…

Itu semuanya lebih karena satu alasan yang sama: kita belum merasa yakin dengan hubungan itu sendiri. Dan biasanya, cowok itu sendiri juga yang udah bikin kita ngerasa ragu-ragu!

Ragu apakah dia bisa selamanya setia.

Ragu apakah dia bisa menerima kita dengan segala kelebihan dan kekurangan kita.

Ragu apakah dia akan bersedia melewati semua rintangan yang ada hanya untuk tetap bersama kita.

Dan ragu apakah perasaan dia sama besarnya dengan perasaan kita untuk dia…

Ada lagi salah satu teman gue yang pernah menyampaikan sudut pandang sebaliknya: cowok juga bisa jadi ngerasa ragu-ragu karena dia lihat si ceweknya seperti masih ragu-ragu. Well in that case, someone has to make an effort, right? Enggak cowok banget menurut gue kalo ngadepin cewek yang dia suka aja dia enggak berani…

Back to Titanic, I believe all girls on earth only want to feel so safe that she’s willing to jump off a boat with him. We only want to have a belief that no matter what happens, he will keep us safe. The more risky the relationship is, the more important it is for us just to feel safe. Otherwise, we would rather watch our own feeling to him just fading away. It’s always better to let it go before it gets deeper, isn’t it?

Once again, no matter what may happen afterward, you jump, I jump.

I Finally Find My Pace

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I can’t really share the details here, but there’s one thing or two I’ve been thinking a lot, confused me for a little while, but just out of the blue, I simply knew what I should do. I finally know what I want, and I finally find my pace to make it happen. Or maybe, to let it all just slip away.

I have come to realize how I used to rush many things in my life. I have to do it NOW. ASAP. Immediately. And so on. For some things in life, for instance working environment, it can be a good thing. But apparently, that’s not always the case for all other aspects in life.

When you want to pursue your dreams, it’s not about how fast you get there, but how you have prepared yourself to make it happen, unless, you’re happy enough for being just a mediocre.

Or when you fall in love, it’s not about how fast you make him yours, but how many years you will spend with him afterward. Not all people meet each other and stay together just in a month, some other still needs to be convinced before they move forward.

We simply need to remember that sometimes, good things take time. Rome was not built overnight, remember?

Hence I would say, just enjoy the ride! No need to speed up and risk it all. Then on the other hand, no need to freak out and take a u-turn when the road is bumpy. Just go with it, believe in yourself, do your best, and see how it turns out. Maybe, you will arrive in your destination, but maybe, God will lead you to somewhere else even beyond your imagination.

After spending many years in the same drama over and over again, it really feels good to finally found my pace. Now, it’s your turn to find yours!

When You’re in Love with Somebody…

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Do you know that when people says “I’m in love with you”, it actually means deeper than someone who just says, “I love you”? I couldn’t really tell the difference between those two until just recently. I suddenly realize that once you are in love with somebody, you’ll never ever find a way out of it.

After you let go of someone you’re in love with, the truth is… you never really stop loving that person. You’re only moving on because you have no choice. You don’t really forget him out of your mind, you’re just getting used to live your life without him. Someday you will move on, find someone new, but that person… he will always has that one little spot deep inside your heart.

When you only loved somebody, someday you can forget your feeling for him and ask yourself, “Why the hell did I fall for him?” At some point, you will stop mentioning his name, you even no longer get excited hearing anything about his life. However I’m afraid, the same thing would never happen with someone you were in love.

That one special guy will always be a benchmark for your next boyfriend, or perhaps, for your future husband too. There are those good qualities that you wish you will find in your Mr. Right. At the end of the day, it may be that guy from the past who determines the way you define someone as your future Mr. Right.

As the time goes by, some things in your heart may never change. No matter how happy you are with your new love life, you will still want to look pretty when you know he will be around. For some things in life, his opinions still matter to you. You’re also still interested to learn how his life is going. To put it in a context, you will be interested to see how his fiancé looks like. You will secretly judge her and compare her with yourself. You hate that you do it, but you will still do it anyway.

The most unpleasant thing that may happen is when you start remembering him at the lowest points of your life. You couldn’t help but wondering… what if you did something differently back in the past? What if you and or he tried harder? How would your life turn out if it were him that spends life together with you?

And then many years from now, once or twice in your lifetime, you will tell your children, or perhaps your grandchildren, a story about how you used to love someone when you were younger. A love story to make them learn that we can’t always have what we want to have. You will also tell them that everything happened for a reason. And the lessons you learned from loving and losing somebody is simply the reason why it all happened: to make you a better person, and to make you cherish the one who stays in love with you with all your flaws.

I know it can be terrifying if everything I tell you in this blog is true. It may be right, it may be wrong. Anyhow for me, even if it’s truly happening in my own life, I believe I shouldn’t be worried at all. Why? Because I’m a believer that human’s heart is capable to be in love with more than just one person 🙂

To be in love with someone is a gift. Not everyone is capable to love that big, deep, genuine, and pure. It’s that kind of love that will give you your own fairy tale. You and him may not end up together, but if it gives you a beautiful memory and if it makes you grow up gracefully inside, then I can tell it’s also a happy ending, isn’t it?

Forget the pain, just be grateful that you used to feel that way. Only the girls with a big heart inside has the privilege to feel it at least once in her lifetime 🙂

 

Surround Yourself with the People Who Want You

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Berawal dari nonton Crazy Ex Girlfriend, gue jadi bertanya-tanya sama diri gue sendiri, “Kenapa ya, masih ada orang yang mau sampai sebegitunya ngejar-ngejar orang lain yang sebetulnya tidak menginginkan dia?” Bukan cuma dalam konteks cinta-cintaan, tapi juga konteks pergaulan. Ada satu episode di serial TV itu yang bercerita si tokoh utama juga lebih ngotot berteman dengan orang yang awalnya nggak berminat untuk berteman dengan dia sampai akhirnya malah melupakan teman baiknya sendiri.

Gue lupa sejak kapan persisnya, gue punya prinsip; “Surround myself with the people who want me too.”

Kenyataannya, berteman atau pacaran setelah dewasa (di saat kepribadian seharusnya sudah matang-matangnya), justru lebih complicated daripada jaman remaja dulu.

Di sekolah atau di kampus dulu, bisa jadi orang lain tidak mau berteman dengan kita karena dianggap “kurang keren”, tapi sekarang bisa jadi sebaliknya juga; orang lain enggan berteman dengan kita hanya karena menganggap kita ini “terlalu keren” buat ukuran mereka.

Atau soal pacaran, waktu SMA bahkan sampai kuliah dulu, pacaran enggak mesti terlalu banyak kriteria. Punya pacar cewek yang lebih pintar di kelas? It’s cool! Tapi kalo punya pacar cewek yang lebih sukses karier-nya di kantor? Pikir lagi dulu! Begitu pula sebaliknya, perempuan-perempuan dewasa umumnya punya syarat-syarat baru soal Mr. Right yang tidak pernah ada saat masih remaja dulu.

Sehingga kembali lagi, buat apa ngotot mempertahankan orang lain yang bahkan tidak mau repot-repot memperjuangkan kita hanya karena kita tidak masuk ke dalam kriteria mereka?

Contohnya, orang yang susah banget diajak ketemuan saking sibuknya dia. Padahal kenyataannya, terlalu sibuk itu hanya mitos! Semua orang PASTI akan menyisihkan waktu untuk hal-hal yang menjadi prioritas mereka. Dan jangan lupa, perbuatan mencerminkan prioritas! Jika mereka mengaku super sibuk tetapi di socmed malah foto-foto dinner bareng orang lain, berarti ya sudah, kita memang bukan prioritas mereka.

Kemudian tidak perlu juga bersikap seperti maniak yang terus menerus mengirimkan puluhan text kepada orang yang hanya balas sekenanya, atau, kepada orang yang tidak pernah ingat untuk menanyakan kabar kita terlebih dulu. Jika mereka ingin ada kita dalam hidup mereka, maka mereka PASTI akan berusaha untuk selalu keep in touch.

Yang paling amit-amit, jangan mau ‘disembunyikan’ oleh teman atau pacar kita sendiri! Pacaran backstreet hanya berlaku jaman ABG dulu, dan, hal yang sama TIDAK seharusnya pernah berlaku dalam urusan persahabatan. Kalau sampai mereka malu terlihat orang lain sedang bareng sama kita, ya buat apa kita bangga terus bareng sama mereka? Apapun alasannya, jangan biarkan orang lain menyembunyikan kita di dalam lemarinya!

Yang terakhir, jangan pernah menjadikan orang lain yang hanya menjadikan kita sebagai “option” mereka menjadi “priority” untuk diri kita sendiri. Misalnya, orang-orang yang hanya mencari kita di saat sedang kesepian, atau orang-orang yang datang dan pergi sesuka hati mereka saja. Bukan berarti harus dimusuhi, tapi jauh lebih baik jika tidak perlu sampai memberi tempat khusus untuk mereka dalam hidup kita. Jangan sampai merusak hubungan dengan orang-orang terdekat hanya karena mementingkan mereka yang tidak seberapa dekat.

Hidup terlalu pendek untuk merasa selalu ditolak. Jalani hidup dengan orang-orang yang juga ingin menjalani hidupnya bersama dengan kita. Perjuangkan hanya orang-orang yang memang pantas untuk diperjuangkan. Tidak perlu mendramatisir hidup kita sendiri dengan terus mengejar-ngejar orang yang tidak ingin untuk dikejar. Kenyataannya, hidup bahagia itu lebih sederhana daripada yang kita kira.

Surround yourself with the people who want you, by then you will know that I am right.

Love Yourself Enough to Walk Away

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Have you ever stopped loving someone just because loving them makes you feel like you don’t love yourself? That kind of feeling that makes you feel bad about everything. You know that they are not the right person, it’s not going to happen, you’ve got to move on, and so on.

Lately I realize… The love to ourselves can be so powerful. We should know that we deserve better. We deserve something real. We deserve a happy ending. And it’s not going to happen unless we let go. The courage to leave all those hopes behind and the belief that someday we’ll get there is an enormous power for us to move forward.

Believe me when I say that it’s not a non sense at all. It’s just so true! You should believe that you will be just fine. Staying where you are is the one torturing you. It’s not even him or her that tortures you, it’s your decision to hang on that eventually kills you. Don’t do it to yourself! Give yourself some credits and live with dignity.

I know that moving on is never an easy thing. No matter how hard we try to keep ourselves busy, we will still think of it everytime we pause. We barely sleep at night and once we do, it even haunts us in our sleep! But again, believe me, the love to ourselves is a power. It will keep us strong, it will keep us going, it will give us a faith that we’ve done the right thing for ourselves.

Finally, someone who loves themselves will always believe that the right person will come along. If you love yourself enough, you won’t insist changing the wrong one to end up as the only one. You will believe that good things take time, and you will take your time. Someday you’ll get there, and you know what… you will when you believe!

Love yourself enough to walk away. You’ve got to know that when it’s over, it’s over.

Have a nice weekend!

Our Mr. Right was Once a Mr. Wrong

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A few days ago, my friends and I met up with one old friend just to catch up after a while not seeing each other. That one old friend who is known as the most wanted guy. Young, smart, good looking, and extremely excellent at his job, but you know, he was that kind of guy whom we thought only dated girls for fun.

That night, this old friend had to disagree about a common statement saying that all the guys on earth always love collecting trophies. By trophy we meant chasing girls and getting them as their new trophy. The excitement to flirt and the satisfaction when she said yes was just addicting. However according to this one guy, that statement was not always true.

More or less, he told us, “Not all guys. Real man doesn’t need trophy. Real man knows what he wants and he will go for it, whatever it takes. Being afraid of the commitment is just bullshit.”

His statement surprised me for a reason. I knew that he was just in love with someone, but I never thought that one new mystery girl could change his point of view until that much. I never thought of him as a committed guy, never at all, until the dinner that night.

Our long chat that night reminded me of one other guy from my past. He had everything I need from a guy, except his willingness to fight for me. I tried to console myself saying that it was just who he was. He wouldn’t bother fighting for a girl because being with someone was never a part of his long term plan anyway. Just like that, I labelled him as another Mr. Wrong to me.

More than three years later, I found my way to move on and ‘restart’ my friendship with him. It’s never as close as it used to be, but it’s still close enough to let me know that he’s a changed man. When I told him I was not really concerned about being single, he replied, “You just haven’t met the right person yet. I also didn’t picture myself being married, until I met my fiance.”

The chat continued, until at the end, I just knew… My Mr. Wrong has turned to be a Mr. Right for someone else.

I have one other friend who also has changed to be a Mr. Right for his soon-to-be wife. He was uncertain about his feeling to his fiance, he was once wondering if he should get back with his ex instead, but then he realized that he always repeated the same mistake: looking back to the past and pushing away the present. And then later, he would miss the girl that he used to push away! Learning from his past, he tried to be committed to his girlfriend, seeing her as who she is, until he finally knew, “She is the girl that I’m going to marry.”

See? A guy needs to be a Mr. Wrong once or a few times before finding himself a the right one. That’s the reason why I’m not too worried for being single at this age. I simply believe that he is out there, still learning how to be a Mr. Right for me. When he’s ready, I’m ready, we will find our way.

Are You Really in Love? Maybe, You Only Love the Idea of Falling in Love

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A few weeks back, a friend of mine once asked me, “Do you really fall in love with him or you’re just being in love with the idea of falling in love?”

To be frank, I didn’t really get her point back then. I didn’t even know if such a thing does exist in a real life. It’s not like I’m living in an imaginary world, a TV show or some random chic lit, right? I wasn’t sure I understood her statement, until one day, I saw something that lead me to understand her point of view.

So I happened to know a couple who kept saying to everyone how they were in love with each other. That kind of couple who made people envy or wonder themselves for being single. I thought all of those romances were real, until someday, I accidentally found out the true things happened behind their closed door.

I won’t share with you the details in this blog, it was simply the moment where I knew that everything was not as perfect as it seemed. It was not even close to the perfection as I thought beforehand. And then, I just couldn’t help thinking if everything I saw was fake.

The more I think about it, the more I understand why people says that sometimes, we’re just in love with the idea of falling in love. It’s not that they’re faking it, they’re just wanting to feel good about their own relationship. They want to prove themselves and everyone else that they are indeed falling for the right person. And then when I looked around, I suddenly could see that it might have happened to anyone of us.

Sometimes, we don’t really like that guy that we just met. We’re just glad to have someone to date at Saturday night.

There’s also a chance that we don’t really want to be with that particular person. Deep in our heart, we only want to have someone who wants us badly.

Or maybe, we say that we’re in love because we only want to tell the world that we’re finally taken. We simply miss the euphoria of telling everyone how we’re falling for someone new.

The other chances are that we love to have someone who looks after us. The one who calls us every night until we fall asleep. Who knows that we only need to admit that we love to be seen together with someone on our Path, Facebook, or Twitter account. We love the idea that after such a long search, we have finally found the one.

And when the reality is not as perfect as we have in mind, when the romance never turns as beautiful as we saw in a TV show, we tend to tell our families and friends the other way around just to heal a little bit of disappointment that we feel inside. Maybe we don’t lie, we ‘only’ exaggerate every little detail to make it look good and therefore, it will also make us feel a little bit better.

We keep playing the drama until finally, we can’t tell ourselves if we truly love the person, or maybe, we’re already lost in a thought that we fall for that one person.

Well if that’s the case, maybe some of you will start asking yourself, “How do I know if my love is real?”

It’s a tough question for me as I don’t really think that I have the right answer to that question. However I believe, if we’re all being honest to ourselves, we will eventually find our respective answer. Maybe, we either need to give it some times, do something to fix all the things that have gone wrong, or simply to stop lying to ourselves and go find something real.

Finally, everytime you find yourself in doubt, always do remember this basic rule to live by: life is too short to be spent with the wrong one! Let’s find ‘the one’ and live our life to the fullest!

Happy weekend!