You should love someone in spite of, not because of.

Hari ini saya re-read Twivortiare, salah satu buku dari pengarang favorit saya, Ika Natassa. Dan saya berhenti di satu halaman, dimana kata-katanya Alexandra (tokoh wanita dalam buku tersebut) bikin saya ngangguk-ngangguk mengiyakan. Jagoan banget kata-katanya! So, saya post saja di sini buat yang tak pernah membaca buku tersebut, hitung-hitung sharing, ya kan? :k

“I just wanna say: it’s impossible for us to find a perfect spouse if we model him/her toward someone, atau toward our own sets of criteria. The world just doesn’t work that way. We’re not God yang bisa bikin orang yang sempurna, sesuai dengan semua yang kita mau.

But we can try to find someone that just works. That when you and that someone are together, you both just work. Despite all the hiccups and each other’s shortcomings and imperfections and flaws. Banyak dari Beno yang mau gue ubah, sama seperti banyak dari gue yang pasti dia juga mau ubah. Countless. Banyak banget.

Tapi terus, mau nunggu kami bisa mengubah each other dulu according to our ideal mindset baru bisa nerima? Nggak, kan? Terus, kalau emang kami berdua berubah sesuai yang diinginkan masing-masing, are we still the same person we both fall in love with?

So you know why you get the impression from my tweets that he is somewhat perfect?

Because to me, he just works.

He and I work, despite our flaws and fights and all that.

Sure we’re making adjustments with each other as we go supaya bisa jalan hubungannya, tapi ada beberapa hal yang left unchanged dan memang harus di-accept aja.

Jadi nasihat gue buat lo semuanya: stop trying to find the perfect spouse according to your own ideal. Just find someone who just works with you. That’s all that matters.

Relationship is work. After we failed the first one, miserably I might add, Beno and I learned this the hard way. Jadi kalau udah ketemu yang sayang sama lo, lo sayang sama dia, both of you can work things out together, and it feels right (not perfect)… ya udah.

Dulu pernah baca quote ini dan menurut gue nggak banget, tapi ternyata setelah gue alamin ternyata beneran. You should love someone in spite of, not because of.”

(Taken from Twivortiare, prescribed by Ika Natassa, page 129-130)