Love
Love is such a vast sea, it has neither
edges nor ends nor corners.
— Jalal ad-Din Rumi
Love is such a vast sea, it has neither
edges nor ends nor corners.
— Jalal ad-Din Rumi
I found a blog post on The Jakarta Globe about Jakarta’s A-Rated Girls. To be honest, I find it disturbing but I can’t deny that it is so true! It doesn’t apply to only guys in Jakarta by the way. You’ll find these kind of guys everywhere. Somehow I see them as a majority. That’s just my guess! 😀
I’m not an A-rated girl that these guys talk about, of course (I hope not!!!). Physical beauty? Are you kidding me? I’d get irritated whenever my guy friends would comment on other girls’ physical attributes. I’d get extremely annoyed and offended if they dared to comment on my clothing or how I look, worst my physical attributes. Seriously, don’t they have any other things to do besides commenting about me and looking at me?! Sorry guys, but that’s EWWWW. Don’t ever dare to say anything about it to me if you’re not my husband!!! hahaha. I’m dead serious.
So, as always, I tweeted this article and got a lot of replies. Who would expect to receive an advice from Pak Harry, a fellow blogger? This is what he had to say:
Sad thing is, many ended up not realizing that with good partner, they CAN become an A-list boy & girl. A loving couple will end up supporting each other. Enabling the other to achieve more. Heck, even just by being in love & in understanding with each other WILL make you more beautiful 🙂 They will shine more brightly than the others, smile more, and clearly truly in happiness. Nothing is more beautiful than a happy woman. Content with everything in her life. So why torture yourself looking for A-list girl/boy – when you can make it yourself ? 🙂 Look for a partner with good attitude & behaviour, be happy together – and people will be jealous with you two.
🙂
Isn’t it such a beautiful advice? 🙂 It makes me want to find that person right about NOW! hahaha.
I am so small I can barely be seen.
How can this great love be inside me?
Look at your eyes, they are small but they see enormous things.
— Jalal ad-Din Rumi
“Love language” is the concept developed by Gary Chapman, which defines a primary way of expressing and interpreting love. Everyone has different ways to make others feel loved and appreciated. Â Some people prefer to use their own love language when expressing love to others and some would prefer to use other love language(s) than their own to do that.
There are five different love languages that Chapman mentioned:
So I hope by now you can identify the love language of the people around you — your family members (including your kids), friends, partner, or boy/girlfriend. Everyone has one primary love language that they speak and it’s not rare to speak one primary language and one secondary language.
One important thing that we must understand about love language is that: all of us need to express our love based on the love language of our significant other. We need to know their love language in order for us to speak the same language. We need to fill their “love tank” with the right love language so that they would feel loved. If not, “miscommunication” can occur and they would complain that we don’t understand them because they don’t feel that their needs are fulfilled. So, from now on, let’s fill their love tank with the love language they prefer, before it’s being filled by other people! 🙂
My love language is quality time and I tend to speak the same language when expressing my love to others. I just love spending time with friends. Sitting in a café, having dinner together, or traveling together are the things I love to do the most. This is probably the reason why my brother and I can get along really well. The presence of each other means so much to both of us. I love spending time in his room (and he always forced me to be in his room). You might find us singing or dancing like there’s no tomorrow, talking like grown-ups do, or just doing something on our own — it doesn’t matter. We just love to be in each other’s company. That’s probably why I love to have roommates!! 😉
I do get irritated when people postpone or cancel our meet-ups or dates (not all the time, but depending on circumstances and reasons, of course). I also feel awful when people ignore me or pretend to listen to me when they actually don’t. If you’re busy, tell me that you are and I’d definitely understand.
My only grandma, interestingly, loves to receive gifts. I observe that she would appreciate more if others notice what she wants and suddenly buy her the gift. I remember at one time she complained about forgetting to buy meses (chocolate sprinkles or hagelslag). So when I went out with friends, I decided to buy her a pack of meses (I didn’t plan to, but I suddenly remembered when I passed a supermarket). She was soooo happy when I gave it to her! She overly praised me in front of others, although it’s only meses!!! Hehehe. I never understood why she loved receiving things from others, but after finding the five love languages, I understood why she felt that way :).
So, what’s your love language? If you don’t know, you can take the quiz to find it out 🙂
P.S. I haven’t read Chapman’s book and I don’t think I will haha!
P.S.S. If you think I have so much time available to post this stuff on my blog, think again! This has been saved as a draft for almost a month! (in case you’re wondering hihihi)
Sources:
The sun will stand as your best man and whistle when you have found the courage to marry Forgiveness; when you have found the courage to marry Love
— Hafez
There are different wells within your heart.
Some fill with each good rain,
Others are far too deep for that.In one well
You have just a few precious cups of water,
That "love" is literally something of yourself,
It can grow as slow as a diamond
If it is lost.Your love
Should never be offered to the mouth of a
Stranger,
Only to someone
Who has the valor and daring
To cut pieces of their soul off with a knife
Then weave them into a blanket
To protect you.There are different wells within us.
Some fill with each good rain,
Others are far, far too deep
For that.
— Hafez
This poem is just beautiful…
In the previous post, I wrote about the most important thing that men need, which is respect. For them, respect means love. If they’re angry or they walk away from the conversation out of the sudden, most probably that’s because they don’t feel respected by the wives.
Now… Moving on to the women’s issues… What’s the most important thing that women need…? *drumroll* EXACTLY, yes. Thank you! 😛
The answer is of course love. To feel loved and cared for. And let me tell you guys, women do need this all the time. They need assurance. They want emotional security. They don’t want to be ignored. It doesn’t matter if you’re married for 2, 5, 10, or 40 years. Women always need to feel loved and they need to be assured by it. Never get bored of saying ‘I love you’ every day or give her rose every week (every women is different in terms of what they want), because THAT makes a lot of difference.
A lot of men say: “I show my love to my wife through my attitude or approach. I don’t need to say that in words!” Seriously, that doesn’t help at all. You need to express your love according to her dictionary, not yours. It may not have any meaning to you, but it does for many women. Affection and expression of love is what they need. That’s how most of them measure the relationship. It makes them happy. So be realistic.
A woman may complain to her husband, “You don’t love your family!” or “You don’t care about us!” while the husband has worked so hard to make sure the financial needs of her and the children are met. Well, the thing is for women, emotional closeness is more important than materials and money (I don’t speak for materialistic women because I’m not one. But I do think at some point in time they actually need more love rather than money). Emotional closeness can be in the form of having dinner just the two of you, without the children. Or basically just spending time together (while I also think the men and women need to have their “boys time” or “girls time” respectively with their own friends… but that’s another issue).
One important thing that ALL men are blind about is how to deal with women who want to “curhat” or vent out, either because they have problems or they just want to complain LOL. Most men just jump straight away into “how to solve it” (like in the company: you have problems, solve it right away). But this is not a company! This is a relationship with a complicated creature called woman! In order to deal with women, you have to listen to them and make them feel good and okay. They actually don’t need any solutions (unless they ask!). They just want you to listen to them and be there when they feel down. Hug them and that will make them feel so much better.
So for us, the formula is:
sharing = listening = love
As simple as that! Hahaha. And this is actually true. I’ve experienced it before. When my boyfriend knew how to deal with me when I had problems, that’s when I felt he understood and loved me. Even if he’s not romantic, when that’s fulfilled, I was happy. Compared that to a guy who’s all about romance and sweet words but when it comes to sharing, he doesn’t know what to do and gets panic. I guarantee you that the woman will complain and ask why you don’t understand her and so on… hehehe. I’ve been in both situations hahaha.
Source: @alissawahid‘s tweets, which were actually based on a book titled For Men Only by Shaunti Feldhahn and Jeff Feldhahn. Her tweets were very long (it’s called kultweet = kuliah tweet = tweet lecture?), so I put them together into a single post that can be easily understood (and add my own interpretation or opinion of course hehe).
I’ve been reading the tweets of mbak Alissa Wahid (yes, she’s the daughter of our former president Gus Dur). Many of her tweets are so interesting — ranging from parenting to relationship. I have to admit that I regret I didn’t “record” or put most of them here. I totally forgot what they were all about now haha…
Anyway, about a month ago (or even more, because this post has been in my pending list), she tweeted about marriage: what husbands and wives (should) expect of each other. Her tweets were based on two books: For Women Only and For Men Only — authored by Shaunti Feldhahn and Jeff Feldhahn. The two books were the result of a nationwide survey in the US and more than 1,000 personal interviews. I think it’s quite interesting and I’m sure most of the information were not that new. But sometimes reminders are what we need! So let’s just refresh our mind again…
In this post, I will focus on For Women Only. Again, this piece is taken from mbak Alissa’s tweets 🙂
One thing that mbak Alissa emphasized was the fact that showering men with love and care is not actually enough. A man needs to feel that he is respected and trusted by his wife. That’s what he needs the MOST. His worst nightmare is to be humiliated. Once he feels humiliated and embarrassed, he will feel unloved by his wife and can easily lose his temper. For us, the women, crying tends to be our response to feeling unloved. But for men, anger tends to be their response to feeling disrespected.
So, while we need unconditional love, men need unconditional respect. Don’t tease him or make “bad” comments about him in front of his friends: “Oh but my husband can’t even fix the tire!”. Don’t question his decision: “Oh come on!! Did YOU really think it’s a good idea?!” or abilities: “Why are you so slow?! Can’t you be a lot faster?”.
The bottom line is, don’t make him feel that he’s not good enough for you. Don’t lower his self-esteem. Don’t make him “less”. Believe him and trust in him and appreciate his efforts (and let him know that!). Give him full support rather than demands. Encourage him.
Criticism is important, but how you say it does make a difference.
Based on research, 74% men would rather be ignored, be alone, or feel unloved than to be humiliated. So, from this point on we can conclude that for men:
respect = love
That’s the formula, people! hihihi. If you wanna feel loved, you have to respect your man first!
This post is actually a note to self (hmm most of my posts serve this purpose actually hehehe). It doesn’t only apply for relationships and marriages. But also friendships. I have to admit though, I do pass out bad comments to guys whom I don’t like. I use that as a weapon to turn them away hahaha. Oh I’m bad!!!
But I do remember, one of my ex asked me at one time, why I would always hesitate to ask him for help. The thing was, I used to do that to all people because I felt “gak enakan”… I just felt that I’d cause them trouble and inconvenience. But for him, apparently, that’s how he showed his love. Protecting and helping me. That’s what made him feels good about himself. And this is only a minor example. It can extend to the fact that a husband provides financial needs to the family. When he provides, he feels powerful as he feels the family depends on him :). He wants to feel depended on because that shows the family actually trusts him (in supporting them).
Being an independent woman also proves to be hard because often time I give a wrong impression that I don’t need him or any guys in general, but that is actually wrong. I don’t think I’m overly independent. There are certain things that I and all other independent women (and all women basically) need. That’s of course will be discussed in the next post, which will focus on For Men Only! Be patient, guys 😛
Even after all this time
The Sun never says to the Earth,
"You owe me."Look what happens
with a love like that,
It lights the whole sky
— Hafez
Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them.
— Leo Tolstoy