We all love the idea of being in love. Not just regular love, but love that is so perfect, it inspires other people to fall in love too. This idea, this fantasy is so strong, that we wish for it every day. We long to love someone perfectly, and we long to be loved perfectly in reciprocation.
To be in that perfect relationship, where there are no mistakes, no fights, and no drama is so easy. Every day is a breeze, and suddenly there are no insecurities, because both of you are perfect, in perfect love.
Isn’t this vision something to look around and forward t0?
All of us are on this quest to find the perfect love for ourselves
We all have a picture of the perfect person we are looking for in life. We try to locate these characteristics in every person we like. It is like a mental checklist, colloquially called compatibility.
“He never smokes!”
“She likes Chinese food and has great hair!”
When we do start dating, there is an effort to make it the perfect love – the way we have it in our head. To still look for the nitty-gritty details you fantasize about in that person.
It was not so in the past. Earlier it was very different – people couldn’t really choose the perfect lover they wished for.
Because we suddenly have the power to choose, to decide, because we are suddenly free. There was a time when everyone was traditionally bound in our society. The groom never looked beyond his mom’s choice of a bride, and nor did the bride choose. You always got married after your elder brother, and love marriages were the stuff of Bollywood movies.
Now, we have the freedom to choose. We can choose a person we like, and get hitched with him/her – with minimal obstructions.
And now, suddenly, we have the freedom to judge if a person is desirable or not.
And now that we have the power, we can judge. And because we judge so freely, we look whether the person is desirable or not. And not just a couple, this comparative analysis is happening every day, every time we see a person we like.
With this freedom, we have this need and desire to be perfect so that we can be loved and desired.
And because we do this, we also know that the other people do it too, and suddenly you have expectations to conform too.
“She likes my hair spiked!”
“He likes Engineers! I should study engineering.”
“She likes boys with great motorbikes!”
And suddenly we have small ambitions and goals so that we can be desired too; so that this desire can turn to be love. And maybe, just maybe, it will all turn out like that perfect image in your head.
Just like in the movies.
And the whole society is based on this unrealistic vision of perfection of the perfect lovers. It is literally everywhere.
The whole consumer society is based on this vision to be perfect. Look at every billboard around you. Every advertisement you read in the magazines. Perfect models with perfect bodies and perfect faces. Perfect couples in perfect homes with the perfect car, going on perfect honeymoons.
That’s what we start desiring. We also want to be that perfect. We also want to have the perfect honeymoon, the perfect wedding picture, like the ones you saw on your friend’s timeline.
So that we are reassured of ourselves.
When we fantasize of the perfect love we want, we forget that we are all actually as imperfect as it can get.
Humans aren’t stupid, you know. Everyone knows this game we are playing. Everyone subconsciously knows that we aren’t perfect, but everyone is trying to be. We know everyone else is also trying hard to be perfect so that they might feel loved too.
And in this din of trying to be the perfect lovers, we forget that we are all imperfect.
After recognizing that we are imperfect, we need to accept our imperfections as they are
We need to realize that we are as imperfect as it gets. As anyone can get. You have to ground yourself in reality. You may not have a race bike, or the perfect hair, or the perfect butt, or those faded jeans your love likes. Maybe you do not like going out for dinners, you do not like science fiction and loved 50 Shades Of Grey.
You have to accept that you cannot live to please a person.
And our partner’s imperfections too
You have to learn that your person is also imperfect. And because you both are imperfect in an imperfect relationship at the start, it is going to get uncomfortable.
It is going to be hard work.
There are going to be fights.
Struggles.
Insecurities.
Because both of you are imperfect lovers.
And have a sense of humor about these imperfections, so that they find acceptance in both of you.
It helps when you accept the imperfections of your love. She gets cranky sometimes, figure out a way to make it funny and make her laugh out of the crankiness. He gets grumpy when you ask him to meet your friends, make him comfortable by making him laugh while accepting these imperfections.
You have to accept this awkwardness, to laugh at them together, and then suddenly, these imperfections are
accepted by both of you. It deflates our egos and shines light on a whole new persona in each of you.
You become more accepting of the other person and understand them better.
And with this acceptance, you can finally appreciate these imperfections and celebrate them together as a couple, strengthening your love.
And you start appreciating these imperfections, even celebrating them. They become one of the defining things that both of you so intimately share. Because it took a lot of work – to accept and appreciate the imperfections – two times over.
Because love is hard work. It is hard, because you have to unlearn everything the society tells you – how perfect it should be, and then work at the little chinks and accept the little quirks and then make it whole.
I read a quote – “No one stays in love by chance, it is by work.”
Work not to make the imperfections disappear, but to accept them. So that you are the imperfect couple in perfect love.
This article is inspired by this TED talk.