Bratty Girl

When I was growing up I was force-fed the highly romanticized view that everyone had one soul mate out in the world and hopefully, you would find them even though the odds were 6 billion to 1 that you wouldn’t. From one perspective it’s very comforting to know that everyone has someone whose destiny is intertwined with theirs romantically. But on the other hand, it was highly depressing to think that if your one person was on the other side of the world or if they were in another culture or if they got hit by a bus, you might very well never meet.

Over time I developed a modified view. I started to believe that while not everyone was compatible with everyone else, there were pools, or small segments of the population that did get along well with one another. So, out of the 6 billion, instead of just one person that I could connect deeply with, there were 5 or 20 or maybe even 50 (depending on how much your personality can adapt to other personalities). Now, granted, finding 50 people out of 6 billion is still like trying to find a needle in a haystack, but it’s much more optimistic (and much less fatalistic) than the alternative.

So bet you’re asking yourself, “So what? How does that do anything for me?”

Well understanding that there are multiple people out there for you, rather than just one, creates a flexibility that you wouldn’t have otherwise. Obviously, with more options comes more freedom. If you are currently dating someone you think is the “one” and some other dude comes along that’s even more perfect, then using the old model, you would have to decide which one was your actual soul mate.

My theory allows you to know that while both may be your soul mate (defined as another human being that is so like you in personality, in preferences, in goals and outlooks, that your relationship is guaranteed to achieve the deepest level of intimacy possible for mere mortals), one may be incrementally better for you than the other. So you don’t have the extra added burden of thinking, “Well if I choose incorrectly, I lose everything.” It’s more like, “Damn, if I choose wrong I’ll still get a soul mate but maybe a slightly lower tier one, and that’s not all that bad actually.”