Home > Member Center > Writer's Corner: Love & Relationships Non-Fiction

HAPPY VALEN - oh, forget it

Feb 12 '03 Write an essay on this topic.

Popular Products in Music

Jersey Boys [Original Broadway Cast Recording] by Original Broadway Cast

From $8

Mai by Eri Sugai

From $4

The Bottom Line Pity my poor husband, for he must live with me.

I thought a long time about this write off. At first I thought, well, as a married person, I ought to write about how the person I married is my soul mate. That wouldn’t have been difficult. He’s a good man, of course, that’s why I married him. But somehow, I wasn’t able to muster up a lot of enthusiasm to write it. Not that it wouldn’t have been a nice and mushy valentine, but I just wasn’t up for it. As I don’t think it has anything to do with said husband, my problem lay elsewhere. After a bit of rumination, I realized both my problem, and came up with a theme for this here essay. My problem is:

I don’t believe in a soul mate

There, I said it. It felt good. I think I’ll say it again: I don’t believe in a soul mate. Okay, now that I’ve been officially kicked out of the write off, I’ll tell you why I am such an unromantic, cynical wench.

It seems that we are often told, either directly or indirectly, that life holds one true love for each of us. One person who will complete us, make us whole, fulfill our needs. Look around at popular culture, the message is everywhere. Every romantic comedy ever made, magazine quizzes entitled “How do you know if he is the one?”, even reality TV programs in which a person purportedly finds their “soul mate” through a series of bizarre televised mating rituals.

Then look at the actual world we live in. The actors in those romantic comedies? Married and divorced over and over. The quizzes? Filler between ads with pseudo-psychological analysis that amounts to little more than a horoscope. “Reality TV”? Yeah, right. Those couplings have all worked out so well.

So, what’s the problem here? Maybe it lies in the idea that each of us needs someone else to make us complete. That we are somehow lacking as individuals if we are not coupled with that perfect someone. I don’t buy that. We are all incomplete, and no other person is going to change that. Completeness implies perfection, an unattainable goal. To expect one other person to provide that is to be disappointed over and over, both in ourselves and in our mates.

I believe a more realistic outlook is to simply seek connections with others; romantic, platonic, whatever. Connections based on shared, well, anything. We can all recognize that we “click” with some people. Neighbors, co-workers, epinionators even, who become our friends. These people are our “soul mates”. Maybe one of them is our romantic partner, maybe not. They are the people who make us richer, teach us things, make us laugh, help us make ourselves more complete. We’re all like a giant puzzle, we fit together somehow, and maybe as a human collective we are complete. But it isn’t just two people, unified as one, creating their own perfect unit.

I wonder if the whole popular concept of a single soul mate leaves some people perpetually seeking, perpetually dissatisfied, always looking for that perfect fit. A wise woman once told me “I knew he wasn’t going to provide me with a life. That I had to do on my own”. And so must we all. And aren’t we lucky to have so many potential “soul mates” to help us do it.

This is my entry in the All Souls write off hosted by DavidMac and jankp. For a list of other fine, soulful participants, see either of their profile pages.

Read all comments (23)|Write your own comment

Write an essay on this topic.

Share with your friends