In the dawn of the birth of my son, I decided to share the story of how I met my wife here (and my analysis why I succeed). I love telling people the story of how I met her. Firstly, because of the circumstances which create a “shoot your shot” moment. Secondly, it resonates with one of the scenes in one of my favourite series, How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM). Lastly, and probably the main reason is that our story always leaves people in awe and amazement. Curious? Here it is.
It was 7th February 2015, I was in my convocation ceremony in Balairung, Universitas Indonesia (UI). I graduated from Mechanical Engineering while my wife, who also attended the ceremony, graduated from Management under the Faculty of Economics. In UI, all of the graduates are seated according to their faculty and Engineering Faculty get seated next to the Economic Faculty.
I arrived with my friend, Vincent. At first, we sat on the front row then we moved to the back row to be closer with our friends and moved once more because we were asked to move by the committee. So I already moved two times from where I sat eventually. On my left was Vincent and on the left of Vincent was my (future) wife. I noticed her since we were sitting pretty close, whenever I talked to Vincent, I would always see her as well. I told Vincent about how pretty she was, and he jokingly said: “you should introduce yourself”. We would jokingly tease each other on how should I approached her and he said I should do Have you met Ted? move from HIMYM. The move is basically having a friend approach the woman and say “Have you met [your name]?” while redirecting her towards you while your friend leaves promptly. Leaving you and the woman with no option but to talk to each other.
And that my friend is exactly what happens.
When the ceremony finished, we stood up to leave the hall and Vincent approached her, while with all glory and awesomeness of that phrase, unfortunately, he didn’t say “Have you met Manyan?”, he instead said “My friend wants to talk to you” — which sounds like a pickup line you hear in a bar, but still pretty cool on this circumstance and probably the only uncool truth on this story. And yes he left immediately, leaving me to offer my hand to shook her hands and introduced myself.
The introduction itself was pretty basic, what is your major, how are you doing, which batch are you, and of course can I have your phone number question. She gave me her number and we said goodbye to each other after that absurd and almost awkward moment. I texted her later at night and long story short, we are now waiting for our first baby boy on our almost-3-years of marriage.
To make the story more amazing, my wife and her friend moved one time to her eventual sitting spot. I moved two times to my eventual sitting spot. It is like destiny wants us to sit (almost) next to each other. Pretty cool, right?
Well, I am not the sort of person who believes 100% in this destiny BS. I believe everything needs effort and strong will. Our story might sound sweet at first, but it is actually not that unique so to say (it is still very special for me and my wife but circumstantially speaking, it is not that special. I want to say statistically speaking, but currently, no one is researching the success rate of searching partners during convocation). Here are my few reasons.
Background Similarity
I feel pretty confident in approaching her since we come from the same university. Many women are afraid of approaching strangers because they have no idea about their backgrounds. With the convocation ceremony as the setting, she is 100% sure that we went to the same university and not some random people. It is similar to chatting up girls in university, where they will most likely engage in a conversation.
I use public transport and facilities a lot so I have seen enough brave young men trying to approach women trying to get their number. Probably 95% gets rejected, although there is one success story that I remember very well (besides my story of course). The man was in army uniform, he approached her when they sat next to each other on a train. As we know, men in uniform create a certain attraction for women and for me, that is his success recipe in getting her number.
This background similarity (or as simple as knowing the background) gives me a confidence boost in anticipating immediate rejection. While for my wife it gives her assurance and (maybe, just maybe) a small attraction since I graduate from one of the top universities in Indonesia? Well, she graduates from there as well but you get my point.
Practice Makes Perfect
I spent the last two years in Australia before meeting my wife. I was in a transfer program which allows me to do two years of my bachelors degree abroad. In Australia, confronting strangers and engaging in a conversation is very common. It is in their culture to do so. Therefore I dealt with spontaneous confrontation many times before, in which people engage with me or I engage with people. In short, I already practised for this.
My friend Vincent was also in Australia in the same period as I did. So we already knew each other and we used to encourage each other to engage with strangers (mostly because we need to have enough people on class projects). It might not be common in Indonesia to initiate a conversation with strangers, but Vincent and I had our share and time in doing this.
I Fight for Her
This is probably the most obvious reason my wife and I are together. It is very basic and everyone can do this. After our first lunch together (my wife refuse to call it a date, as she views it: just two friends hanging out together), I really enjoy her companion and conversation. I like her. Then I spend the next few months chasing her until we officially dated. There has been ups and downs in our relationship of course, but everything boils down to one simple thing: I fight for her.
This sounds very simple and yet many people miss this. You can meet the love of your life anywhere anytime and yet it will become nothing if you do nothing. In my case, I met my wife during convocation which is an unusual circumstance, but my persistence took us to where we are today. If you want her you need to fight for her. Simple.
My last advice on people still looking for love is this:
Never let anyone else’s love story defines yours.
There is no such thing as a better couple, better how we met story, better chemistry, and all that love story non-sense. This is a mere sharing and short analysis to “not everything is as sweet as it seems”. You are the main actor in your story. Create your own story. Good luck.
