Oh fuck you, Billy Joel.

You don't.

You don't love her just the way she is.

You love her, so you tolerate just the way she is, but to say you love her JUST the way she is...well, that's a bit much.  

I mean, really?  Like none of us EVER want our significant others to make a little change here and there.  Let's be serious, BJ.

You'll pretend that you have never heard the stories or jokes that she ALWAYS tells, and you will laugh every time as if they are brand new.  You won't let her hear the slow intake of breath and you will keep your eyes straight and not rolled back into your head, and you will let her deliver the punch line even though you could yourself, right down to the timing and inflection of her voice.

You won't be disappointed when you realize that she is not as original as you once thought, that what you perceived as her 'unique style' is actually what all twenty something Lower East Side/East Village New Yorkers wear.*

*this 'unique-less' quality also applies to jokes you thought were hers but actually turn out to be quotes from TV, performed as if her own.

You'll get to the 'comfortable' part of your relationship and you will not say anything about how she used to sleep in slinky nightgowns, or better yet nothing at all, and now wears your old t-shirts and sweats to bed.

When you fight, you will call her every name under the sun to your buddies and you might even break up, proclaiming acts of independence and journeys into the self and how you are such a better person now, you have grown so much and have benefited from this turning point in your life.

And then she'll call.

And you will take that bitch back.

You love her, which lets you tolerate all of these annoying traits that you pretend to find endearing.  

Not just the way she is.