To begin with, Marhel was close with my family cause she’s a close friend of Jocellin, my younger sister. I only knew Marhel as one of Jocellin’s friends and we never even talked before. At the time I was studying abroad and rarely came back to Indonesia. Moreover, we both had our own partners. Around mid-2020, I returned to Indonesia, and coincidentally, both of us were single but still emotionally stuck with our exes.

We exchanged a few interactions on Instagram stories, we never went beyond that point. Until one day, when Jocellin was on a trip to Bali with her friends, I noticed Marhel post a story on Instagram, and I saw that she wasn’t in Bali. I reacted on her story, and since we were both bored at home, I asked her out for coffee. Our first conversation just had a good flow and as the days passed, we started hanging out frequently.

Then, on the night of May 5th, 2021, when I was driving her home, dressed in a plain old t-shirt, shorts and sleepy eyes, equipped just with determination, I asked her to be my girlfriend. To my surprise, she said yes. The next morning she texted me asking if I was being serious. I told her I meant it, and that I really wanted us to be together.

That was the start of our journey. We went through so much together—from traveling to Malang, Bromo, Lombok, and even Malaysia. We were always together, especially when I moved to Jakarta and she transferred her studies there around the same time by coincidence. In 2023, due to work, we had to do long distance between Jakarta and Medan. It was tough, but we didn’t really have a choice. Finding work in the capital city wasn’t as easy as people thought it would be.

During the 2023 year-end holiday, where I went to Bandung with Marhel and her family, I took that opportunity to ask her family for their blessing, and thankfully they gave it. From there, I started planning how I could propose to her and still keep it a surprise. So on January 1st, 2024, I invited her to dinner at a Japanese restaurant in PIK. I told her to dress up as if we were going out for grocery, while I dressed up in a neat and casual outfit. She was a bit confused about the way I dressed for a simple dinner, but I tried to divert the conversation—and since Marhel is pretty chill, she didn’t suspect anything. Dinner went smoothly, and afterward, I suggested we take a walk around PIK, especially since they had just built a new bridge there.

While we were on the bridge, I tried to direct her attention to the view of all the restaurant lights reflecting beautifully across the lake. Then I went silent and when she turned around, I was already down on one knee with a ring in hand. Right there on that bridge I asked her to marry me.

She was totally shocked, she smiled and without hesitation she said yes. Honestly, our story hasn’t always been perfect. We’ve had a lot of ups and downs that people probably wouldn’t expect, whether it’s emotionally or financially. There were fights, tears, laughters, longings, frustrations, even moments when we felt hopeless. But we never gave up on our relationship. We always fought for it together, and now we’ve made it to this point.

It’s really true what people say—if someone is meant for you, they won’t go anywhere. Who would’ve thought that my soulmate would turn out to be my sister’s friend, the one who used to casually hang out at our house hahaha